Hot List: For Every Answer, More Questions

Data & Measurement
Written By Jason Damata

“They may not have been high art, but they most definitely struck a chord,” Alan Wolk in this week’s take The Death Of The Sitcom Is Bad For TV.

What we love about working in TV and media the last 20 years is every week is full of interesting developments that always lead to more questions about where things are heading.

This week for example:

  • Comcast, which generated $21B in Q3, is so big that barely anyone noticed it signed on 414k new wireless customers, 4X what it lost in broadband subs. Could this Warner bidder be the best, most diversified option for the WBD business?

  • Sky Dance/Paramount, which just announced a price hike for January and yet another round of layoffs, now operates in a different financial realm, what with Larry backing David and all. How far will they go with the WBD bid and what else is on the menu? Will Trump play a role for them?

  • Netflix, which does have a dominant subscription service but no clear long term moat, could surely use the vast catalogs. But does it have an anti-trust issue getting Warner?

  • The fight between Disney and YouTube ended like any good negotiation, with both sides claiming victory. What’s it gonna cost customers? Who is next on each’s extortion list?

  • Meanwhile, Amazon and Walmart are re-building the entire TV screen to shopping cart loop in a way that changes advertising, home discovery and personalized experiences. While some in TV fight over media products, isn’t it better to own the consumer habits and shelf space?

The TL;DR

YouTube locks sidebar on mobile ads, removing close option [Search Engine Land]

  • TL;DR: YouTube removed the “X” close button on mobile horizontal video ads, keeping shoppable panels fixed throughout horizontal video ads. For advertisers, this increases the persistence of visibility; for viewers, it reduces control and may impact the viewing experience.

Roku Jumps On The API Bandwagon For Its Self-Serve Ads [AdExchanger]

  • TL;DR: Roku launched its new “Ads API,” a free, open toolkit that plugs directly into its self-serve Ads Manager and lets developers integrate reporting, audience targeting and conversion signals right from their systems. At launch campaign and creative management aren’t included yet but are promised later this year—marking a push toward making CTV advertising feel more like digital/social‐media buying.

Advertisers react to holiday creep by pushing TV spend earlier [Digiday]

  • TL;DR: Media buyers say that brands are moving up their TV and upper-funnel spend into October (even August for some) to get ahead of consumers who are shopping earlier than ever—and avoid being left behind when “holiday” actually starts. Rather than simply increasing total budgets, many are stretching campaign durations—starting earlier and extending later—to match a longer shopping season—and potentially avoid heavier cost spikes during the traditional peak.

​​CTV Manufacturers Have A New Tool For Catching Spoofed Devices [AdExchanger]

  • TL;DR: The IAB Tech Lab announced a new “device attestation” feature within its Open Measurement SDK, allowing manufacturers (e.g., Apple, Amazon) to affirm that ad impressions are delivered on real connected-TV devices—not spoofed ones. This deterministic signal (vs. probabilistic heuristics) gives advertisers and platforms a clearer path to weed out invalid traffic and faked inventory at scale.

LG Ad Solutions Introduces Agentiv, an AI-Powered Advertising Technology Platform [Business Wire]

  • TL;DR: LG is rolling out “Agentiv,” a platform of AI agents intended to streamline media-planning and campaign execution, reducing time for reports from days to hours. The development shows a shift toward “agentic advertising” — media buying where AI tools play a larger role in operational workflow while humans still handle strategic decisions.

Recommended Reading:

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Jason Damata

Jason is the founder and CEO of Fabric Media, a media incubator and talent consortium. The company serves leading-edge TV disruptors- from data and analytics platforms to TV networks to emotional measurement companies. Damata has traveled the country for C-SPAN, where he worked with MSOs, produced educational political programming. He has served as CMO of Bebo when it was the world's 3rd largest social network, led marketing for Trendrr until it was acquired by Twitter and helped build the world's largest LIVE broadcast offering at explore.org where he built up a global syndication network. He is an analyst for companies on the edge of TV innovation such as iSpot, Inscape, Canvs, TNT and more.

http://linkedin.com/in/jasondamata
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