Digiday Sunday
Digiday: One of the busiest weeks of the year with blanket reporting on Upfronts week and execution on DPMS rolling out Monday to Friday. The upfronts coverage was very thorough with a total of ten separate pieces publishing up through tomorrow morning. The content was certainly next level and the feedback has been stellar. Coverage of YouTube’s upfront presentation and positioning with advertisers drew our largest reader audience last week. A piece on how publishing giant Gannett’s updated contract language around AI has sparked union concerns performed well, as did our Media Buying Briefing that took a deep dive into agency holding company Dentsu’s latest restructuring plans to turn the corner on their, to-date, anemic growth. And a look at how X is attempting to make a pivot to become a ‘video first’ platform, spurred on by its 8 billion daily video views, drew strong viewership stats as well. – James Cooper
?Story highlights
? Tim Peterson had the week’s most-read piece that looked at how YouTube pitched advertisers in the just-concluded 2024 upfront week. As he reported, ‘As the most-watched streaming service on TV screens?for 15 months running , brands can hardly avoid advertising on the Google-owned platform. But between the breadth of YouTube’s programming — from?NFL Sunday Ticket ?to not just?cat videos ?but?videos? for ?cats ?— as well as the sheer amount of ad inventory it has available, the question facing YouTube heading into the upfront market, as ever, is whether advertisers feel not only the desire but also the need to commit to spending on YouTube in an upfront fashion.’
Sara Guaglione reported out a smart and well-read story on how Gannett’s latest language regarding AI has alarmed a local newsroom union , specifically regarding the safety of editorial jobs. As she reported, ‘On April 24, union members of the daily Democrat & Chronicle newspaper in Rochester, New York, noticed an unexpected change in a clause around the use of artificial intelligence in a contract draft sent by Gannett. In a previous draft sent to members on April 11 and subsequently posted on X, the clause stated that AI “may be used to generate news content that is supplementary to local news reporting and is not a replacement for it.” But on April 24,?an updated draft ?sent by Gannett to the local paper’s guild removed that stipulation.?“Artificial intelligence (AI) may be used to generate news content,” it read.
Michael Burgi ’s lead item on last week’s Media Buying Briefing, which he took a few weeks to chase down, took a look under the hood of Japanese-owned giant agency holding company Dentsu’s plans to restructure itself to stem the recent tide of poor growth stats (Dentsu forecasts an anemic 1% of organic revenue growth in 2024.) As he reported, ‘Merkle, the data, tech and media firm Dentsu purchased in 2016 and has underpinned many of the holding company’s prior efforts at creating a data spine like its competitors (Omnicom’s Omni platform or Publicis’ Spine, etc.), is being put to different use in the creation of a suite of SaaS tools and products. The latest result is Merkury for Media, which aims to place all of Dentsu’s media for clients against first-party data coming out of Merkury, a global data, identity, and insights platform. It’s another step toward trying to optimize to business outcomes in all Dentsu’s linear and digital media planning and buying.' Always nice to see a premium briefing hit the top-read chart.
Krystal Scanlon published a well-read story that took a look at X’s plans to become a video-first platform after touting the fact that it features 8 billion daily video views. As she reported, ‘With these stats, X aims to make headway toward positioning itself as a video-first experience in the eyes of marketers. The hope is that upcoming updates will go even further toward solidifying that. So far, X has already launched video spaces on iOS and audio video calls, while an X CTV app and an X video tab are tipped to come soon, per [a] newsletter?document [seen by Digiday], though no dates were listed.’
Sam Bradley had a sharp enterprise piece that?broke down? how the NBAs protracted, complicated and incredibly expensive rights battle will likely impact brand advertising . As he reported, 'Though it could stick with its existing broadcast partners, the introduction of Amazon Prime Video onto the scene could lead to a three-package system. NBC’s proposal is also understood to take some games from linear TV on to its Peacock platform, meaning there could be two streaming platforms being added to the mix.' Great to have sports marketing coverage back in the mix.
领英推荐
? Kayleigh Barber ’s edition of the Digiday weekly podcast featured an interview with Jason Wagenheim, CEO, North America, FootballCo, and his mission to win over soccer curious advertisers. As she wrote in her intro, he plans to do this ‘by blending lifestyle and sports content into a video-dominant mix that appeals to non-sports native brands.’ Give a listen here
Here are the Digiday + Briefings for the week
See you next Sunday!