The Brief Monday 8th December. Serviceplan new agency, Meta AI deals, Perplexity sued, Omnicom UK moves.

❗ Paramount Skydance has made a hostile bid worth $108.4bn for Warner Bros Discovery in a final effort to outbid Netflix. (Reuters)

🏠 Serviceplan Group, parent of Mediaplus Group UK, has launched House of Communication UK, uniting its media and creative agencies under one roof. Mediaplus Group UK CEO Tom Laranjo has been appointed to lead the new entity. (Serviceplan Group)

❌ X has been fined €120m by the European Commission for breaching transparency obligations, including through “the deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark’, the lack of transparency of its advertising repository, and the failure to provide access to public data for researchers”. (CNBC)

🤖 Meta has struck commercial AI agreements with news publishers including USA Today, People Inc, CNN, Fox News, The Daily Caller, Washington Examiner and Le Monde. The deals will allow Meta to provide “real-time” news and updates through its AI chatbots. (Reuters)

📰 The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune have both separately sued AI company Perplexity, alleging copyright infringement. (Bloomberg)

⬆️ Omnicom Media has promoted MG OMD CEO Natalie Bell to CEO of OMD in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Laura Fenton has subsequently been appointed UK CEO of Omnicom Media UK following its acquisition of Interpublic Group. (Campaign)

👨‍💼 S4 Capital agency Monks has appointed Thiago Correa as senior vice president of media for EMEA. (S4 Capital)

🎤 Four countries — Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Slovenia — will boycott next year’s Eurovision song contest after Israel was given the go-ahead to compete. Several participating broadcasters had lobbied for Israel’s exclusion over its conduct of the war in Gaza. (The Guardian)