100% Media Roundup: 8 August- 12 August
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, 12 August
ITV agrees three-season LaLiga deal
ITV will broadcast LaLiga, the top Spanish football league, for the next three seasons.
ITV have secured the UK rights to 10 matches per season up to and including the 2024/25 season will be broadcast live and exclusively free to air on ITV, ITV4 and ITV Hub.
The matches will will include either FC Barcelona, Real Madrid or Atlético Madrid with the first match to be broadcast at 8.30pm on ITV4 on 21 August following a deal with rights holder Premier Sports.
ValueAct takes 7% stake in The New York Times
Activist investor ValueAct has taken a 7% stake in The New York Times Company through purchase of its common stock, which it will reportedly use to push for changes to the Times’ subscription business.
ValueAct has previously invested in tech companies like Adobe and Microsoft.
ValueAct’s investment was first reported by Bloomberg.
Dentsu reports more than 8% group organic growth
Dentsu reported group organic growth of 8.2% in the second quarter, or 8.9% excluding Russia, in its latest earnings.
This broke down to 7.9% for the Dentsu Japan Network and 8.4% for Dentsu International.
H1 FY2022 saw growth in all regions through “continued growth in media” as well as increased client spend on digital transformation initiatives.
Group net revenue for January to June 2022 was 518.9bn yen (£3.20bn or $3.88bn), an increase of 17.8% year-on-year and 11.5% on a constant currency basis.
Customer transformation and technology grew 22.5%, making up nearly a third (32.3%) of group revenues.
Looking forward, Dentsu “retains confidence” in medium-term targets of 4- 5% organic growth with a 17.7% operating margin, despite the impact of Russia by FY2024.
TalkSport to run full classified football results
TalkSport will broadcast full classified football results on Saturday at 5pm.
This comes as the BBC axed the classified results from BBC Radio 2 last week.
The results will be read by the lead live football presenter, Adrian Durham.
TalkSport will cover more than 450 games on its network this season.
Google agrees to pay $60m penalty
Google has agreed to pay $60m in penalties after a court case with the Australian competition watchdog (ACCC) over the collection of personal location data.
The Federal Court ordered Google to pay the amount for making “misleading representations” about the collection and use of personal location data on Android phones between January 2017 and December 2018.
It found Google had breached Australian Consumer Law by representing to some Android users the setting under “Location History” was the only Google account setting that affected the collection, storage and use personally identifiable data about their location. However, another setting, “Web & App Activity”, also enabled Google to collect, store and use this data, and the setting was turned on by default.
ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said: “This significant penalty imposed by the Court today sends a strong message to digital platforms and other businesses, large and small, that they must not mislead consumers about how their data is being collected and used.”
EssenceMediacom names Jill Kelly as US CEO
GroupM’s newly merged media agency EssenceMediacom has appointed Jill Kelly as its US CEO.
Kelly (pictured, main), whose leadership will be effective October 1, previously served as GroupM’s global CMO, where she led the creation of the company’s Responsible Investment Framework.
Before she came to GroupM in 2019, Kelly served as CMO of Publicis Groupe’s Digitas.
EssenceMediacom will officially launch in January of next year.
The company moved to promote MediaCom’s current US CEO Sasha Savic to global chief innovation officer at EssenceMediacom.
Jason Harrison, who has served as Essence North America’s CEO, has also completed a move to become Choreograph’s global chief solutions officer.
Thursday, 11 August
Fox Corp reports increases in revenue, profit
Fox Corp reported fourth quarter fiscal revenues of $3.03bn (a 5% increase from year-over-year), net income of $308m, and a 7% increase in adjusted Ebitda (the company’s measure of profit) to $770m.
For its full fiscal year, which ended 30 June, Fox reported an 8% increase in annual revenue to $13.97bn.
However, the company’s net annual income declined from $2.20bn in 2021 to $1.23bn in 2022, and adjusted Ebitda fell from $3.09bn to $2.96bn.
Fox Corp attributed the results to higher expenses despite increased revenue, particularly with regard to Fox’s digital investment in TUBI and Fox News Media.
Regarding advertising, the Murdoch-owned company noted that ad revenues increased 9% on the year, primarily due to higher pricing at Fox Sports and Fox News Media.
Facebook serves ads on white supremacy group searches, according to watchdog
Despite purporting to ban hate groups from using its platform, Facebook is still making advertising money from searches for white supremacy groups that have maintained a presence, according to a report from non-profit watchdog the Tech Transparency Project (TTP).
In TTP’s investigation, Facebook served ads on 40% of the researcher’s searches for white supremacist groups, including from major corporations like Walmart, non-profit the Coast Guard Foundation, and culture magazine Rolling Stone.
TTP also found that searches for groups with “Klu Klux Klan” in their name yielded ads for black churches.
A spokesperson for Meta stated: “All 270 groups that Meta has designated as white supremacist organizations are banned from our platform. We invest extensively in technology, people, and research to keep our platforms safe. We immediately resolved an issue where ads were appearing even if a user searched for terms related to banned organizations and we are also working to fix an auto generation issue, which incorrectly impacted a small number of pages.
“We will continue to work with outside experts and organizations in an effort to stay ahead of violent, hateful, and terrorism-related content and remove such content from our platforms.”
Wavemaker retains Royal Navy and Royal Air Force media
Wavemaker has won a three-year media strategy and planning contract from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force for their recruitment campaigns.
This win forms part of an eight-year relationship which created “Made in the Royal Navy” campaign (pictured, main image) and Wavemaker’s focus will be to resonate with the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force’s diverse target audiences.
The account was pitched through the government’s Campaign Solutions framework, and other agencies invited to pitch from Lot 2 were Four Communications, Havas UK, Manning Gottlieb OMD, MediaCom UK and Mindshare Media UK.
Amazon Prime UK adds exclusive music content
Amazon Prime members in the UK will now be able to access 175 titles dedicated to music programming from The Coda Collection.
The Coda Collection, a streaming video channel focussed on music, first launched in the US in February 2021, and has exclusive documentaries and films from performances from artists including Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, The Who, Idles, Radiohead, Dave Grohl, Pearl Jam and more.
New content on the streaming service from The Coda Collection will be updated regularly.
Meta introduces AI tools for advertisers
Meta has launched Advantage+ shopping campaigns allowing advertisers to automate the campaign creation process and optimise campaigns.
Advantage+ shopping will roll out to ecommerce and retail advertisers on 15 August, automating up to 150 creative combinations and will also help advertisers optimise campaigns through machine learning.
On 10 August, Meta launched Advantage+ creative and Advantage audience for small businesses to create more effective ads on their Facebook pages.
Advantage+ creative automatically adjusts ad creative for each person viewing the ad, making it the version they are most likely to respond to.
Meanwhile Advantage audience builds a personalised audience based on Page details which is automatically adjusted over time to reach “more relevant people” with the ad.
Wednesday, 10 August
Alight Media appoints managing director
Alight Media, the out-of-home media owner founded in 2018, has appointed Dan Durling to the new role of managing director.
Durling (pictured, above will start in the role on 7 September and be responsible for working with the team to maximise the potential of Alight’s portfolio, which has combined adult reach of almost 30 million each month with more than 1500 OOH advertising sites, including digital 48-sheets and digital six-sheets.
Most recently, he worked at an AI consultancy business Nozzle.ai and has previous roles at Verizon Media, Oath and Yahoo, Global and Chrysalis.
Netflix’s The Sandman gets 69.48 million viewing hours in opening week
Netflix’s adaption of Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed DC comic book series The Sandman earned 69.48 million total hours viewed in its first week.
That was enough for the series to debut at Netflix’s #1 spot on its English TV list.
The Sandman also appeared in the top 10 in 89 countries.
Radiocentre launches online radio planning effectiveness tool
Radiocentre, the industry body for commercial radio, has launched the Radio Planning Optimiser tool using “big data” to help maximise the effectiveness of radio advertising campaigns.
The tool was developed as part of the Big Audio Datamine project analysing effectiveness results and radio campaign weight information from 454 individual in-market radio campaigns between 2008 and 2022.
Users can see effectiveness curves showing how ad awareness changes relative to weekly reach (%) and total campaign gross rating points (GRPs) and it is also possible to filter data based on product sector, brand position in market, whether radio is the lead medium, and campaign length.
Mark Barber, planning director at Radiocentre, said: “Radio has traditionally been synonymous with frequency planning but the learning derived from this analysis demonstrates categorically how weekly reach is the primary driving force behind better campaign performance. Hopefully this learning will finally help advertisers break free from the frequency rules-of-thumb that have dogged radio planning since the early 1990s and allow them to benefit more fully from the true effectiveness potential of the medium.”
BBC Commonwealth Games coverage attracts record 57m streams
BBC Sports’ coverage of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games was streamed 57.1 million times over 11 days, more than six times the amount of streams of a previous Games.
Coverage of the 2018 Games from Gold Coast was streamed nine million times and Glasgow 2014 was streamed 8.2 million times.
The BBC reported a total of 28.6 million people watched this year’s games which finished on Monday.
The highest TV peak was 6.6 million ahead of the women’s 100m backstroke and men’s 100m breaststroke finals on day three, and the opening ceremony registered a five-minute peak of 5.2 million viewers.
Not even Ben Stiller knows how many people are watching Severance
Ben Stiller, the director of Apple TV+’s hit psychological thriller series Severance, is, like the rest of the public, not given viewership figures for the show by Apple.
Stiller discussed his frustration in an interview with Decider.
“They don’t tell you the numbers. It’s really weird. So, you get these graphs and charts, like I said, that have peaks and valleys. But you don’t know what the baseline is. I guess could be like, based on 100 people or could be like, 200 million people. We don’t know.”
He added that it’s just “how, I guess, all the streamers do it”, highlighting the lack of transparency around audience measurement from the likes of Netflix and Disney+ as well.
Spotify reorganizes its home feed to separate music and podcasts
Spotify has launched a new home feed for Android users that includes separate tabs for music and podcasts.
In the music feed, users will access album and playlist suggestions based on their music taste.
In the podcasts and shows feed, listeners will be able to head right to new episodes of their favorite shows, as well as find personalized podcast recommendations.
In addition, users will now be able to read full podcast descriptions and save episodes without needing to click into a separate page.
Spotify plans to roll out the new feed to iOS users sometime in the near future.
Big Ten ‘nearing $1bn TV deal’ with Fox, CBS, and NBC
The Big Ten NCAA conference is nearing a $1bn TV deal with Fox, CBS, and NBC, according to reports.
Each network is likely to pay around $350m for their share of the media rights.
ESPN pulled out of negotiations this week according to The Athletic, ending a relationship that spans 40 years once the current rights expire in 2023.
The Big Ten is rumored to also be adding a streaming package to the deal, but a partner has not yet been revealed.
The oldest division I collegiate athletic conference in the US, the Big Ten has expanded in recent years, adding UCLA and USC beginning in 2024 to encompass 16 schools across the country.
Paul O’Grady quits BBC Radio 2
Paul O’Grady is leaving BBC Radio 2 after hosting the Sunday afternoon slot since 2009.
This comes after a recent reorganisation saw O’Grady share his slot with comedian Rob Beckett, where they would host shows alternately, each for 13 weeks at a time.
His last show will be 14 August and future plans for the slot will be announced at a later date.
This is the latest in a series of BBC Radio 2 presenters leaving including Vanessa Feltz and Steve Wright, as well as other BBC talent joining Global including Andrew Marr, Jon Sopel, and Emily Maitlis.
Read more on BBC Radio 2 here:
Rajar Q2 2022: BBC Radio 2 breakfast audience shrinks again
The Trade Desk reports 35% increase in quarterly revenue
Global technology platform, The Trade Desk, reported $377m in revenue for Q2 2022, a 35% increase on the same period last year.
For the six months to 30 June, it registered $692m in revenue, marking a 39% increase on H1 2021.
Jeff Green, co-Founder and CEO of The Trade Desk said it would continue to invest to drive future growth in key areas such as identity, connected TV, retail media and supply chain optimization.
Tuesday, 9 August
Bauer Media Audio launches premium subscription audio service in Norway
Bauer Media Audio has launched a premium subscription audio service in Norway, after successful launches of sister platforms in the UK, Denmark, and Poland.
Subscribers will gain ad-free 24/7 access to nine national radio brands and more than 70 exclusive stations,, along with additional on-demand and podcast content from Radio Norge, Radio Rock, Radio Vinyl, Topp40 and PodPlay.
Bauer Media Audio reported it reached more than 61 million listeners weekly in nine countries through broadcast radio, online services, and podcasts.
Read more on Bauer here:
Bauer launches subscription service for KISS and Absolute Radio
NewsGuard partners with programmatic tech group EMX by Big Village
Digital news ratings company NewsGuard has partnered with EMX by Big Village, an end-to-end programmatic tech company and SSP focused on the planning, buying, and measurement of CTV and omnichannel media.
The partnership has been made to “provide credibility ratings for new content and enhance protections for buyers against news misinformation”.
EMX will leverage NewsGuard’s ratings through its onboarding screen process and offering the additional brand safety measure for all of its partners.
EMX has been previously accused by adtech watchdog Check My Ads of monetizing far-right website Breitbart through its digital ad exchange.
Meta’s new AI chatbot spouts offensive speech
Meta’s new AI chatbot, BlenderBot3, is already courting controversy less than a week after its release for offensive speech, according to reports.
The chatbot, which users can interact with as Meta tests and tweaks the AI, has reportedly repeated far-right and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
This is from a fresh browser and a brand new conversation. Ouch. pic.twitter.com/JrTB5RYdTF
— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) August 7, 2022
It has also told a user that it thinks Mark Zuckerberg is “too creepy and manipulative”.
Horizon Media names Roberto Alcazar EVP, managing partner, executive creative director of 305 Worldwide
Horizon Media has named Roberto Alcazar, EVP, managing partner, executive creative director of 305 Worldwide, Horizon’s “culture-first” creative agency.
In the new role, Alcazar will oversee the strategic vision for 305 Worldwide, driving strategic media and creative best practices and providing innovative marketing and creative counsel to clients.
305 Worldwide was launched by Horizon Media and Armando Christian Pérez (known by his stage name Pitbull, pictured with Alcazar, above) in 2019.
Alcazar assumes the role after two years as 305 Worldwide’s creative director.
HBO Max rolls out new UX for desktop and mobile
HBO Max has rolled out a new user experience and interface on desktop and mobile with “highly requested” new features.
They include:
- Updated navigation
- A “refined” design and visual styling “to let content shine”
- A dedicated home for downloaded content, with performance improvements
- Shuffle button functionality expansion to mobile devices
- SharePlay support for iPhone and iPad users in the US
- Tablet support for both landscape and portrait orientations
- An “enhanced” screen reader experience with improved navigation elements
- The ability to split screens with other apps on mobile
- Chromecast stability improvements
The update arrives just days after parent company Warner Bros. Discovery said it intended to merge HBO Max with Discovery+ by next summer, and ahead of the August 21 release of the highly anticipated Game of Thrones prequel The House of the Dragon.
News Corp nearly doubles profits, sets record full year revenues
News Corp reported fiscal year revenues and net income at records of $10.39bn and $760m, respectively.
Revenues grew 11% year-over-year while net income increase 95% from $389m a year ago.
Full year total segment Ebitda also set a record at $1.67bn, a 31% year-on-year increase.
The Murdoch-owned media conglomerate attributed the earnings blowout to impressive profitability by its news media segment, bolstered by growth in digital advertising revenues (+14%) and record digital subscriber numbers across its publications.
Dow Jones & Company (which publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and Marketwatch, among others) also had an impressive quarter, with 54% profitability growth to $106m, and annual 31% growth to $433m in profit; Dow Jones saw an 18% year-on-year increase in revenue.
Book publishing, through HarperCollins, also saw a 10% increase in revenue year-over-year.
Ogilvy PR has launched a global business influence offering for B2B level clients
Ogilvy PR has launched a global business influence offering for B2B level clients.
Rahul Titus, global head of influence at Ogilvy, is leading the initiative which will help companies, which already include IBM, Samsung Business and Vodafone Business, build business influence campaigns by accessing “credible industry authorities” building brand awareness and reputation, facilitating relationships and improving employee engagement.
Snapchat introduces parental controls
Snapchat has introduced its first set of parental controls after promising last October it was developing family safety features.
Parents or guardians will need to install Snapchat on their own device to use the new feature called Family Center, which links their account to their teens’ account through an opt-in invite process (pictured, below).
When this is linked, parents and guardians can see which accounts their children are having conversations with over the past seven days, rather than the content, as well as their friend list.
They can also report potential abuse to Snap’s Trust & Safety team to review.
OMD wins British Gas media account
OMD has won the British Gas media account following a competitive pitch.
Omnicom Media Group’s OMD pitched against WPP’s MediaCom and IPG’s Mediabrands.
The incumbent agency was WPP’s Nucleus.
Monday, 8 August
Axios to sell itself to Cox Enterprises for $525m
Digital news publication Axios has agreed to sell itself to Cox Enterprises for $525m, according to reports.
The deal includes an additional $25m in investments for Axios’ media arm to expand the publication’s local, national, and subscription news products.
Cox will control the board of Axios’ media arm with four seats (including one for chairman and CEO Alex Taylor), but Axios’ three co-founders (Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz) will remain on the board.
Cox is purchasing Axios for more than 5x its revenue (Axios has projected its 2022 revenue to reach $100m).
The Atlanta-based global conglomerate Cox Enterprises was founded in Ohio in 1898 as a local newspaper company.
Axios is one of just a handful of digital news companies to be sold for over $500m in the past few years, following Politico (sold for $1bn in 2021) and The Athletic (sold to The New York Times Company in 2022 for $550m).
Ryan Reynolds’ production company enters first-look deal with FuboTV
Maximum Effort Productions, co-founded in 2018 by Ryan Reynolds and George Dewey, has entered into a multi-year, multi-pronged partnership with FuboTV that includes a first-look deal for unscripted content.
As part of the deal, Maximum Effort will also launch and maintain creative control over Maximum Effort Network, a new linear channel on FuboTV, while FuboTV will manage ad sales for the channel.
As consideration for the deal, Maximum Effort will also receive equity from FuboTV.
FuboTV is a “sports-first” live TV streaming platform that launched in 2015.
Reynolds and actor Rob McElhenny of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fame bought Welsh football club Wrexham AFC in 2020, and a documentary about the team co-produced by Maximum Effort will premiere later this month.
Read more on Ryan Reynolds here:
9 things we learned from Ryan Reynolds at Cannes Lions
Alex Jones must pay $45.2m in punitive damages, court rules
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered by a Texas jury Friday to pay $45.2m in punitive damages for his defamation against the families of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting victims.
The damages are on top of the $4.1m in compensatory damages the jury awarded the plaintiffs on Thursday.
Jones is currently facing two more lawsuits from other families of Sandy Hook victims, though both are currently on hold after Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems, declared bankruptcy.
Deliveroo’s media partner Criteo faces €60m fine for alleged GDPR violations
The French Data Protection Agency (CNIL) has proposed a fine of €60m ($65.4m) for adtech company Criteo for alleged breaches of European general data protection regulations following an official investigation.
This is after digital Privacy International filed a complaint against a number of adtech companies in 2018 stating their practices were not in compliance with GDPR rules, calling Criteo “a manipulation machine” because of its tracking, targeting and data processing techniques that provide “individual-level shopper predictions”.
In a statement, Ryan Damon, chief legal officer at Criteo said: “We strongly disagree with the findings in the CNIL investigator’s report, both on the merits relating to the investigator’s assertions of non-compliance with GDPR and the quantum of the proposed sanction. We find the merits of this report to be fundamentally flawed, and the proposed sanctions to be incommensurate with the alleged non-compliant actions. We look forward to further dialogue with the CNIL as well as to defend our case to the ultimate arbitrator of a final decision.”
Read more on Criteo here:
Deliveroo launches ad platform in the UK