The Media Leader explores the rationale behind WBD’s move and how the new networks businesses could grow organically, while Disney believes it will make its own unified proposition more competitive.

The broadcaster announced two other commercial innovations at its Showcase event in Manchester: Lead Gen Ads and YouTube Affinities.

Five months after ITV and YouTube inked a new partnership deal to bring full episodes of ITV programmes to the platform, the broadcaster is seeing incremental audience reach without cannabalisation, and appealing to more FELT brands.

Guy Bisson at Ampere Analysis believes the future of partnership and M&A will cross-match global distributors, regional content providers, global content providers and regional distributors. Such deals will help traditional media survive a world where geographic licensing and traditional windowing are being killed by streaming.

Following the recent ruling on Meta’s privacy intrusion, Thinkbox’s new CSO explores how advertising can deliver relevance without the stalker vibes.

Independent analyst Ben Keen has outlined significant changes to the way global streamers conduct their business and the content they offer. In all cases, they are drawing from a playbook that served pay-TV operators and channel owners well for decades.

The conference highlighted how three key segments of the TV industry are adapting to “life after” and quickly building a new story for themselves.

The UK broadcasters have embraced YouTube as a source of incremental audiences as the platform is promoted from a marketing tool to a strategic distribution partner.

ITVX will recoup its investment this year, earlier than anticipated, and ITV Studios achieved record profit thanks to cost-cutting measures and a new digital distribution strategy.

While their viewing share has declined, broadcasters are agile and remain strong in a number of areas, according to a talk between Shapiro and Barb CEO Justin Sampson.