The Brief – Thursday 9 April: Publicis-Microsoft partnership, Ofcom’s next chair and more

🤖 Publicis Groupe has expanded its strategic partnership with Microsoft in order to build a “full-stacking marketing solution” that “unifies legacy systems, AI agents, and identity-based data” to improve marketing outcomes for clients. As part of the partnership, Publicis is making its 114,000 global employees use Microsoft 365 Copilot and has selected Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud provider. Publicis has also recently been named Microsoft’s global media agency of record. (Publicis Groupe)

⬆️ The UK government has named Ian Chesire, the former chair of Channel 4, as its preferred candidate as next chair of the media regulator Ofcom. His appointment will be subject to a parliamentary hearing by the Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee. (Politico)

🤖 Specialist journalists and publications appear more likely to be cited in AI search queries, according an analysis of a new feature launched by PR database Muckrack. Former Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget, who now runs a Substack, is the most frequently cited journalist globally across major LLMs. The only UK-based journalist in the top 18 names is Bea Mitchell, who writes about visitor attractions and tourism for Blooloop.com. (Press Gazette)

🎧 Spotify is expanding its AI-powered Prompted Playlist feature to include podcasts as well as music. Now in beta, users will be able created AI-aided playlists for podcasts in English by writing prompts like, “Make a playlist of true crime podcasts I would be interested in, adding highly rated series I might have missed.” (TechCrunch)

📺 The broadcast of a racial slur at this year’s Bafta Film Awards breached the BBC’s editorial standards, the Corporation’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) ruled. The slur, which was involuntarily shouted by a Tourette syndrome campaigner, was not edited out of the TV broadcast and remained available on iPlayer until the morning after. (BBC)

📺 CBS is replacing The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with two syndicated comedy shows from producer Byron Allen: Comics Unleashed and Funny You Should Ask. (The New York Times)

📱 A former employee of Meta is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police under the suspicion he downloaded 30,000 private images of Facebook users. A Meta spokesperson said they discovered the breach over a year ago and “referred the matter to law enforcement” after firing him. (BBC)