The Brief – Wednesday 4 February – Publicis earnings, Disney names next CEO, IAB US aims to protect publishers

💰 Publicis Groupe reported 5.9% year-on-year organic revenue growth in Q4 and 5.6% organic revenue growth for fiscal year 2025. The holding group expects to outperform expectations in 2026, guiding full-year organic growth to between 4% and 5%. (Publicis Groupe)

📺 Disney has named Josh D’Amaro its next CEO. He will succeed Bob Iger on 18 March. D’Amaro is currently the chairman of Disney’s Experiences division, which includes its parks, resorts, cruise ships and consumer technology developments. (NBC News)

💻 ITV has entered into a partnership with Banijay Rights, the global distribution arm of Banijay Entertainment, to sell its inventory on YouTube. ITV Sales will represent Banijay shows on YouTube, including Would I Lie To You?, MasterChef, Peaky Blinders and more. (ITV)

🔃 Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired Elon Musk’s Grok developer xAI in a deal worth $250bn. Last year, xAI acquired Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter). SpaceX is also rumoured to be seeking an IPO at a combined valuation of $1.25tn. (FT)

📰 IAB US announced proposed draft legislation and plans to push for action to protect publishers from AI companies using their content to train their models and generate AI search summaries without consent or compensation. (Axios)

🎧 Audioboom has entered into a commercial and hosting partnership with media network, Crooked Media. CM is behind popular political podcasts such as Pod Save America and Pod Save the UK. Audioboom will provide hosting, global distribution and network advertising sales across CM’s full podcast portfolio. (Audioboom)

🦁 The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity has revealed its jury presidents for 2026. Sindhuja Rai, chief client officer at WPP Media, APMEA, has been appointed the Media Lions jury president. (Cannes Lions)