100% Media Roundup: 11 July- 15 July
This is a daily digest of news stories from around the media world, updated by The Media Leader team, to ensure you’re 100% up-to-date.
Friday, 15 July
Clear Channel hits 1 billion impressions milestone in Europe
Clear Channel now has over 11,000 digital out-of-home (DOOH) screens across 9 European markets via its LaunchPAD programmatic platform.
The milestone means that Clear Channel now delivers over 1 billion impressions per month.
Screens are available across the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Finland, and, most recently, France and Sweden.
Reach and Scotsman Group journalists ‘to vote on strike’
National Union of Journalists (NUJ) members at Reach, and National World-owned titles in Scotland, have announced they will vote on action to strike over pay and redundancies, respectively, according to a report from Press Gazette.
The NUJ refused a 3% proposed pay rise from Reach, citing inflation concerns and low existing salaries for junior and senior reporters.
Meanwhile, according to Press Gazette, journalists at National World-owned Scotsman Group have voted 90% in favor of strike action on a 72% turnout in an indicative ballot (i.e., an initial vote before an official ballot is sent out).
Results of the ballot initiatives are expected in early August.
The Guardian appoints new US editor
The Guardian has appointed Betsy Reed as its new editor of Guardian US.
Reed (pictured-below) joins from The Intercept, where she had been editor-in-chief since 2015. She also previously worked as executive editor of The Nation.
She succeeds John Mulholland, who announced earlier this year he would be stepping down after over five years in the role.
Netflix teams up with Microsoft for ad-supported plan
Netflix has announced it has chosen to team up with Microsoft on its ad-supported subscription tier.
The streaming giant had reportedly been in talks with a host of advertising partners, including Google, Comcast, and NBCUniversal, among others, before ultimately settling on Microsoft.
In a statement, Netflix COO and chief product officer Greg Peters said: “Microsoft has the proven ability to support all our advertising needs […] More importantly, Microsoft offered the flexibility to innovate over time on both the technology and sales side, as well as strong privacy protections for our members.”
Wednesday, 13 July
Warner Bros. Discovery inks deal with Professional Triathletes Organisation
Warner Bros. Discovery and the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) have signed a multi-year broadcast partnership for the new PTO Tour, a series of high profile, high prize fund, global events featuring the world’s best triathletes.
The agreement will grant Warner Bros. Discovery exclusive live coverage in 50 territories across Europe on Eurosport linear channels and streaming services Discovery+, GCN+ (Global Cycling Network), and the Eurosport app.
Warner Bros. Discovery previously broadcast the PTO’s inaugural Collins Cup last year, a $1.5m race which received audiences in more than 175 territories.
Channel 4 appoints first director of inclusion
Channel 4 has chosen Marcia Williams as its first director of inclusion.
Williams (pictured- below) will join the broadcaster in August 2022, and be responsible for its “strategic direction” of inclusion and diversity.
She will report in to chief executive, Alex Mahon, and also become a member of the Executive Management Board.
As part of her role, the employee-focussed 4Inclusion team will report to her and she will work with Emma Hardy, director of commissioning operations, sharing reporting responsibility for the creative diversity team.
Williams has worked in inclusion and diversity for almost thirty years, with her most recent role as director of diversity, inclusion and talent at Transport for London.
Bloom launches ‘menofesto’ to demystify menopause in the workplace
Bloom UK, the professional network for women in communications, has announced an initiative coming soon to change language, support, and understanding given to all women in the communications industry in the lead up to, during and after the menopause.
The Menofesto will also include anyone who experiences symptoms as a result of hormonal changes, and is based on Bloom’s Understanding Menopause research from 2021.
Bloom describes it as “a starting point” to open dialogue with organisations to destigmatise something 51% of the UK population will experience in their life and the Menofesto will offer a blueprint menopause support framework for businesses to adopt.
Twitter sues Elon Musk
Twitter has officially filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk for violating his $44bn deal to buy the company.
The lawsuit asks the Delaware Court of Chancery to force Musk to complete the merger.
Twitter has filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery to hold Elon Musk accountable to his contractual obligations.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) July 12, 2022
Musk has stated he is terminating the deal over concerns over the platform’s ability to measure spam bots, but the lawsuit calls such claims “pretext” that “lack any merit”.
Mirror chooses John Stevens as political editor
The Mirror has appointed John Stevens, previously Daily Mail deputy political editor, as political editor.
He will join The Mirror’s political team in the autumn and replace Pippa Crerar, most known for scoops related to Dominic Cummings’ lockdown-breaking trip to Barnard Castle and parties in 10 Downing Street, who is moving to become political editor of The Guardian.
Evan Williams steps down as CEO of Medium
Evan Williams is stepping down as CEO of Medium effective July 20, he announced in a blog post.
The former Twitter, Blogger, and Odeo co-founder helmed Medium for the past ten years.
The site attempted to offer writers a space for the publishing and sharing of longer-form blog content than Twitter, though it never entered the internet zeitgeist like Williams’ former project.
Tony Stubblebine, a former colleague of Williams’ at Odeo and current founder and CEO of Coach.me will take over as the platform’s new CEO.
Williams will still oversee the company as chairman of the board, a new position, and stated that he plans “to start a new holding company/research lab […] to be helpful to Medium and other companies I believe in.”
YouTube TV hits 5 million subscribers
YouTube announced that YouTube TV, YouTube’s streaming television service that offers live TV, on-demand entertainment, and cloud-based DVR, reached the 5 million subscriber milestone Tuesday.
The service first debuted in February of 2017 in five US markets before expanding to cover all US households by March 2019.
Among the top DVR’d shows across the platform are Yellowstone, Saturday Night Live, This is Us, 60 Minutes, Grey’s Anatomy, and live sports such as Formula 1 racing.
Tuesday, 12 July
Disney Advertising partners with The Trade Desk
Disney Advertising has partnered with ad tech company The Trade Desk with the goal of powering greater audience activation at scale programmatically.
The agreement will enable a “first-of-its-kind” integration between Disney’s proprietary Audience Graph and the open-source identity framework, Unified ID 2.0, within a secure “clean room” environment.
Media buyers will be able to discover more addressable, biddable inventory across the Disney portfolio, all validated by Disney’s proprietary Audience Graph.
Evening Standard reports 36% drop in turnover year-on-year
The Evening Standard, the free weekly paper distributed throughout Greater London majority-owned by Evgeny Lebedev, has reported turnover of £28m for 2021 in its latest filing at Companies House.
This represents a drop of 36% compared to 2020 which recorded £44m turnover.
As a result of this decrease, the operating loss margin increased by 9% to 42% year-on-year, and the company registered an operating loss before interest and tax of £12m in 2021, compared to £14m in 2020.
The company’s primary source of revenue is advertising sales, which the annual report said represents over 90% of turnover.
There was a 13% increase in digital revenue in 2021 compared to 2020, while challenges in print revenue remained with total costs of sales reduced 32% compared to the prior year through a reduction in the number and size of newspapers printed alongside a reduction in all discretionary spend.
Looking forward, The Evening Standard will continue to place digital and mobile content development as “the most significant initiative” as the pandemic accelerated reading behaviour changes. The newspaper also mentioned it will look more to live events to create new revenue streams.
TikTok introduces “Inventory Filter” brand safety tool
TikTok has launched a brand safety and suitability solution giving advertisers more control over where their ads appear on the platform and what content appears next to it.
This tool applies to In-Feed Ads on the “For You” page and is currently available in 25 countries in more than 15 languages.
“Inventory Filter” is also aligned with GARM’s Brand Safety and Suitability Framework.
Spotify acquires music trivia game Heardle
Spotify has acquired its first game, a daily music trivia game based off of the popularity of Wordle, Heardle.
The Name That Tune-esque game works by playing a snippet of an intro of a song and prompting users to then find the correct artist and title within six attempts.
The music streaming company views Heardle as “more than a trivia game”, but rather a “tool for musical discovery”.
Spotify states that the game will remain free-to-play and basically unchanged, but that users can now listen to the day’s full song on Spotify at the end of the game.
Heardle is available in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with plans for expansion into non-English-speaking territories planned in the future.
C4 chief tells select committee DCMS tried to influence wording of annual report
Channel 4 chiefs faced questions from a select committee today over the broadcaster’s future.
During questioning by MPs today about the delayed publication of its annual report, Alex Mahon, CEO of Channel 4, said: “It is fair to say the DCMS made some comments that they would have preferred to see in the report, particularly about our future financial sustainability.”
He added: “Really, the questions were about whether our wording was in line with government policy. It is the first time to my knowledge in [Channel 4’s] 40 years that there have been queries about the annual report.”
BBC’s commercial arm announces record revenue
BBC Studios, the BBC’s commercial arm, has announced a record set of results for the financial year 2021/22.
Overall sales were £1.62bn, a 30% year-on-year-increase, with UKTV singled out in a very healthy year of production.
Profit (EBITDA) was up 50% year-on-year to £226mm the first time the business has exceeded £200m, with a £135m cash dividend going back to the BBC.
Morning Brew pulls in more than $30m revenue so far this year
Business news publisher, Morning Brew, has made $36m revenue in the first half of this year.
The company was founded in 2015 and now has 10 newsletters as well as four podcasts.
It brought in $46m in revenue last year and is on course to grow that figure by 66% this year.
Netflix achieves 10 million subs in France
Netflix has passed 10 million subscribers in France, up from seven million in 2020.
The company’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos revealed the subscription numbers in an interview with French newspaper JDD.
According to a report in Advanced Television, the streaming service investing “heavily” in the French content industry, with €200 million going into movie and TV creation in 2022 to produce 25 original projects coming to the platform with 20 are already in production.
Netflix currently has 222 million subscribers globally.
MediaCom UK launches data practice
Mediacom UK has launch an integrated data practice made up of 16 cross-agency specialists tasked with providing a comprehensive data-led service to clients.
Owain Wilson will lead the practice which will be based on four pillars; people, solutions, product and partnerships, to deliver “best-in-class” insights, planning and results across the media ecosystem, with a focus on data growth, control, privacy, ethics and sustainability.
The data practice will work alongside MediaCom’s Google, social media and ecommerce practices.
This launch follows the merge of Essence and MediaCom into EssenceMediaCom.
BBC Wimbledon 2022 becomes the most streamed ever
The BBC’s coverage of Wimbledon 2022 tennis grand slam tournament has broken its previous online viewing record with 53.8 million streams on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport online.
The previous record was 30.5 million streams set in 2021, and the volume of hours consumed by audiences on TV was the highest since the 2016 championships in which Andy Murray won the Men’s singles title.
The Men’s Singles Final between Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios on Sunday attracted a peak audience of 7.5 million, a peak 43% share of viewers and was streamed live 2.6 million times on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport online.
Meanwhile the Women’s Singles Final between Elena Rybankina and Ons Jabeur the day before gained a peak audience of 3.1 million and was streamed 712,000 times on the same platforms.
Across the whole two-week Championships, the BBC reported 25.5 million people watched Wimbledon 2022 on BBC TV.
UEFA Champions League US media rights ‘expected to top $2bn’
The Union of European Football Associations is expecting bids for the US TV rights to the Champions League to surpass $2bn for a six-year deal, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Currently, Paramount and Univision hold the rights for $145m per year combined.
The new bids are expected to more than double the value of the rights to around $333m per year.
According to Bloomberg, UEFA has held “preliminary discussions” with Comcast’s NBC, Disney’s ESPN, Paramount’s CBS, Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox, Apple, and Amazon in recent weeks.
The bidding deadline is anticipated to be August 15.
TikTok introduces small business training program
TikTok has introduced a new multi-channel “educational experience” designed to help small-and-medium businesses use TikTok efficiently to drive their marketing strategies.
The program, Follow Me, sets out to “empower more small businesses to dive into TikTok, so that they can also share their story with the TikTok community and reach their goals”.
Tips and advice on how to use the platform for promotion will be delivered by TikTok’s Small Business Ambassadors and through a 6-week email series that outlines best practices.
Specsavers appoints ex-Pepsi exec as head of media and connections planning
Specsavers has appointed Ian Maybank as head of media and connections planning.
Maybank (pictured- below) will be responsible for media, insights and connections planning across the UK, Ireland and Spain and lead a team of 10 in charge of delivering an integrated communications plan and “best-in-class” customer experience based on consumer insight.
Most recently he was head of media, digital and total connections planning across Europe for PepsiCo Beverages and Snacks, particularly working on the growth of Pepsi Max and Walkers Crisps.
Prior to this he held senior agency positions including business director at Dentsu Aegis Network, business director at Grey London, and account director at Karmarama.
Read more on Specsavers here:
Specsavers enables hearing test bookings on smart speaker
Confused.com becomes sponsor of ITV soap Emmerdale
Confused.com, the price comparison site, has struck a sponsorship deal with ITV for its prime-time soap Emmerdale.
The sponsorship will start from 18 July and offer sponsor accreditation to all broadcast episodes of the show alongside all episodes of Classic Emmerdale on ITV3.
The deal was brokered by Zenith and Publicis Media Content, and Zenith has led the media planning and buying across platforms to include bespoke content, branded digital and social media, licensing and on-set activity.
Emmerdale will celebrate its 50th anniversary in October this year, and ITV reported it garners an average of five million viewers per episode, with 74% watching “live”, and more than 450,000 weekly users catching up on the six weekly episodes on ITV Hub.
Confused.com launched in 2002 and its product range now comprises home insurance, van insurance, motorcycle insurance, and car finance comparison as well as other money-saving tools.
Monday, 11 July
TikTok launches exclusive content partnership with the PGA Tour, DP WorldTour and The R&A
TikTok has announced “a summer of golf” content with partnerships with the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and The R&A, who organise The Open Championship.
The fortnight of golf kicks off with the Genesis Scottish Open, co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, which will be followed by the 150th Open Championship.
There will be a hashtag challenge from 6 to 15 July alongside behind-the-scenes clips and top tips from players.
The Bytedance-owned platform has also had partnerships with UEFA for the men’s Euros in 2020 and women’s Euros 2022 as well as title sponsorship of the Women’s Six Nations.
Sky News to host first live UK Conservative leadership debate
Sky News will host the first live television debate between candidates to take over leadership of the Conservative Party.
The debate will be hosted by Kay Burley and take place on 18 July in Sky News studios in West London.
Leadership candidates will face questions form a virtual studio audience, and the programme will be broadcast live and for free on Sky News channel 501, as well as its digital channels, YouTube, and simulcast on IRN Commercial Radio partners.
The Ad Council relaunches Creators for Good
Leading US communications non-profit The Ad Council is relaunching Creators for Good, its influencer and trusted messenger engagement strategy arm
Creators for Good seeks to leverage The Ad Council’s established relationships in the media and marketing industries to identify and amplify “trusted voices” on the country’s most pressing issues.
Since its original launch in 2015, Creators for Good has engaged more than 2,300 “influential voices”, including celebrities and social influeners such as Mike Alfaro, Simone Biles, Billie Eilish, and Karina Garcia, across 50 unique campaign issues.
Twitter is testing new CoTweet feature
Twitter is testing a new feature in the US, Canada, and South Korea that would allow multiple individuals to tweet together.
The platform states the feature will allow users to “share the spotlight and engage with new audiences”.
Share a Tweet, share the cred.
Now testing CoTweets, a new way to Tweet together. pic.twitter.com/q0gHSCXnhv
— Twitter Create (@TwitterCreate) July 7, 2022
Separately, Elon Musk is projecting confidence about his attempt to leave his $44bn acquisition of the social media platform despite concerns over its illegality.
NFL confirms NFL+ streaming service to launch this fall, new Sunday Ticket partner sweepstakes
In an interview with CNBC, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that the league will be launching NFL+, its own streaming service, in time for the fall season.
Goodell declined to provide any details about the service, but described it as “in an early stage.”
The development of NFL+ was first reported in May by TechCrunch.
Separately, Goodell announced the league will be selecting a new NFL Sunday Ticket partner by the fall.
Currently, NFL Sunday Ticket—the NFL’s out-of-market sports package that carries all regional games produced by Fox and CBS—is delivered through DirecTV, which paid $1.5bn for the rights.
Among the bidders to become Sunday Ticket’s new exclusive distributor are Apple, Amazon, and Disney (which owns sports streaming service ESPN+), according to CNBC.
Kaitlan Collins named 2024-2025 White House Correspondents’ Association president
CNN’s chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins has been elected to a three-year term on the White House Correspondents Association’s (WHCA) board, and will serve as WHCA president in the third year (2024-2025).
A huge thanks to my fellow members of the White House Correspondents’ Association for this vote of confidence. I am honored, humbled and ready to get to work! https://t.co/2CUgmfvqa8
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 6, 2022
Collins narrowly beat out USA Today’s Francesca Chambers for both roles, receiving 240 votes for president to Chambers’ 201.
The current WHCA president is CBS News Radio’s Steven Portnoy, with NPR’s Tamara Keith and NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell following in succession in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, respectively, before Collins.
ITV to trial contextual targeting solution next quarter
ITV will trial an automated contextual targeting solution through its programmatic platform Planet V next quarter.
The solution will leverage AI machine learning to scan content and create advertising opportuniyies related to moods, moments, or objects.
Read the full story on our sister title Videonet here: ITV piloting automated contextual targeting solution next quarter