The Media Leader

News analysis, opinion and insight for media and advertising professionals

Is Sky’s acquisition of ITV necessary to compete with global platforms?

Analysis: The acquisition is likely to draw close scrutiny from regulators. TV ad buyers favour the deal as a way to simplify TV planning and measurement, but downstream effects could compound.

The market has already decided the future of broadcasting

Comcast, ITV and RTL are not isolated stories. They are all manifestations of the same underlying trend, writes analyst Ian Whittaker.

Cannes reflections: OOH at Cannes – nothing or everything?

OOH was everywhere at Cannes Lions, but also almost invisible. Talon’s global CEO Sue Frogley argues that the sector needs to shout louder about its capabilities.

Almost 5% of inventory sold as CTV is not on a television set, study claims

Device detection specialist 51 Degrees conducted a one-week study of 11m OpenRTB ad impressions and found a notable mislabelling problem. It says buyers are overpaying for their CTV as a result.

‘It’s not like we knowingly have bad ads’: Meta on ad fraud, teen safety, and why AI will not replace agencies

Meta’s Derya Matras discusses her reaction to social media bans for under-16s and answers questions relating to harmful platform design, ad fraud, automating media and creative work, and the future of smart glasses.

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Opinion

Paul Evans

The agencies that move first under LLM-mediated selection won’t be the ones with the cleanest schema markup. They’ll be the ones who have taken a clear, distinct position, writes Paul Evans.

Alice Ierace

It’s time to level up. The female gamer stereotype has had its run. Game over, says Fifty’s insights manager.

Lindsey Clay

Cannes was an overcrowded, sweaty endurance test interspersed with moments of illumination and inspiration, says Thinkbox CEO Lindsey Clay.

Data Snapshot

Data-led charts from across the UK media landscape

Find out more about the UK's most comprehensive aggregator of media data.

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News analysis, opinion and insight for media and advertising professionals

Is Sky’s acquisition of ITV necessary to compete with global platforms?

Analysis: The acquisition is likely to draw close scrutiny from regulators. TV ad buyers favour the deal as a way to simplify TV planning and measurement, but downstream effects could compound.

The market has already decided the future of broadcasting

Comcast, ITV and RTL are not isolated stories. They are all manifestations of the same underlying trend, writes analyst Ian Whittaker.

Cannes reflections: OOH at Cannes – nothing or everything?

OOH was everywhere at Cannes Lions, but also almost invisible. Talon’s global CEO Sue Frogley argues that the sector needs to shout louder about its capabilities.

Almost 5% of inventory sold as CTV is not on a television set, study claims

Device detection specialist 51 Degrees conducted a one-week study of 11m OpenRTB ad impressions and found a notable mislabelling problem. It says buyers are overpaying for their CTV as a result.

‘It’s not like we knowingly have bad ads’: Meta on ad fraud, teen safety, and why AI will not replace agencies

Meta’s Derya Matras discusses her reaction to social media bans for under-16s and answers questions relating to harmful platform design, ad fraud, automating media and creative work, and the future of smart glasses.

The Media Leader

Opinion

Efficiency has built holdco sameness. AI will make that an expensive choice.

It’s ‘game over’ for cosy stereotypes around female gamers

Cannes reflections: ‘Nobody claimed to be the new TV this year, which was nice’

Industry News

When it comes to the TV user interface, less could be more

Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment in deal worth up to £1.6bn

UK box office up 14% in H1 as Toy Story 5 leads big June

How to bridge the measurement gap when cross-media ‘utopia’ remains elusive

Spotify ‘took some intentional pain’ to rebuild its ad stack. Is it paying off?

BBC Studios launches advertising network to give access to its brands in one place

Should media reinvest in ‘fun’? I raced 14 agencies across the UK to find out

The Brief – Wednesday 1 July: Axel Springer completes Telegraph takeover, Zoe Ball joins Greatest Hits Radio, and JCDecaux renews Heathrow contract

Data Analysis

Mapping the UK agency landscape

The industry is calling it cross-media. It’s not

Campaign ROI is maximised when audio gets 25% of spend, finds Radiocentre report

Tech firms must enforce tougher age checks for social media platforms, regulator says

Data Snapshot

The ad-vantages of streaming

World Cup Wonders

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