1. Disney, NFL Reach Broad Media Rights Agreement (SBJ)
Disney and the NFL have reached a “broad agreement” on a new rights deal that will keep “Monday Night Football” on ESPN and return ABC to the Super Bowl rotation, Sports Business Journal reported. The contracts have not been signed but both sides are close to finalizing a deal. Disney will pay up to 30% more than its current deal, which pays the NFL about $1.9 billion per season.
2. Digital Turbine Acquired AdColony For $400 Million (AdExchanger)
On Friday, Digital Turbine acquired AdColony for $400 million from its parent, Norwegian Internet Company, Otello Corp. Digital Turbine works with more than 40 mobile operators and device manufacturers, including AT&T, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Samsung, Verizon, HTC, Singtel, and Sony and helps apps and advertisers build relationships with mobile carriers and phone manufacturers. “The acquisition makes sense from a strategic point of view”, said AdColony’s CRO, Jude O’Connor, in a release.
Media monitoring and contact services, Cision, with its 1 million journalists and media outlets database have acquired online consumer intelligence and social media listening platform Brandwatch for $450 million, in a combined cash and shares deal. While Cision claims to have over 75,000 customers, Brandwatch applies AI and machine learning to the practice known as “social listening”. The move combines two large players to offer a broad range of services, from PR to marketing and online customer engagement. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.
4. President Joe Biden Voiced In Favor Of Amazon Employees Forming Union (Bloomberg)
President Joe Biden supported the ‘Trade Union’ organizing efforts of employees at Amazon.com Inc. warehouse in Alabama, saying workers should be able to make their own choice about whether to join a union, free from pressure and threats from the company. “But let me be even more clear: It’s not up to an employer to decide that either,” Biden said in a direct-to-camera video produced by the White House and given first to Bloomberg News. “The choice to join a union is up to the workers.”
Revenue of the National TV network business, E.W. Scripps grew by 40% to $591 million, adding $473 million from the local TV station that contributed 43% of its revenue in Q4. Scripps had record political advertising of $138 million for the entire 2020 and posted $265 million in political advertising. Political messaging preempted core advertisers, resulting in a 9% decline in those advertising sales to $181 million. Scripps gained major results from renegotiating retransmission fees contracts for its TV stations, a 36% hike to $150 million.
6. AMC Networks End Q4 With 6 Million+ Subscribers (Variety)
AMC Networks ended 2020 with more than 6 million subscribers for its AMC Networks streaming services across recently launched AMC+, Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now, and ALLBLK– up 157% year-on-year. The company reported fourth-quarter earnings on Friday that beat Wall Street forecasts. Revenue slipped 0.6% to $780.3 million and AMC swung to net income of $94.7 million, or $2.09 a share, from a loss of $8.6 million, or 15 cents a share, the year-ago before. The shares were up more than 5% in premarket trading.
7. Companies Accelerate Efforts To Bolster OTT/CTV Ad Frauds (AdExchanger)
CTV ad spending in the United States is expected to increase from $8.1 billion in 2020 to $11.4 billion this year and ad scams are mounting-up equally, as Doubleverify detected a 161% YoY increase in ad scams in Q1 of 2020 alone. Apart from initiating efforts like DoubleVerify, Oracle Moat, and White Ops to check ad frauds, companies continued their efforts in bolstering their security capabilities in OTT/CTV. While independent ad server Flash taking acquired Israeli-based ad fraud detection specialist Protected Media, Aniview, an end-to-end ad-serving solutions provider for publishers, partnered with White Ops.
