With 1 in 4 UK homes reached, AI optimisation trims CPC 75% and boosts ROI for brands.

Most viewers pause for 1 to 5 minutes, offering extended periods for non-intrusive ads likely to drive action.

The Academy Awards will leave ABC after nearly 50 years and stream exclusively on YouTube beginning in 2029—a decisive acknowledgment that audience attention has migrated to digital TV. The deal gives the Academy expanded year-round programming options, flexible sponsorship formats, and a global distribution footprint that linear networks can no longer match. YouTube, now the No. 1 source of US TV viewing time at 13%, gains a premier cultural event as it continues its push into live programming alongside NFL Sunday Ticket. For marketers, the Oscars’ move underscores how YouTube has become the industry’s default television—and a must-buy for premium reach.

Retailers aren’t waiting for Black Friday to kick off their holiday campaigns. Since October 1, linear TV holiday ad spend reached $475.1 million, up 13.2% YoY, according to iSpot. Weekly spending has also climbed steadily, indicating brands are frontloading their budgets to capture demand across all of Q4.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss why measurement is harder than it used to be, how the metrics advertisers use to evaluate their spend are changing, and what marketers can—and should—do to navigate this transition effectively. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Principal Analyst Max Willens, Nielsen's Head of Performance Marketing Alison Gensheimer, and SVP and Head of Advertisers and Agencies Matthew Devitt. Listen everywhere, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss the main factors leading marketers to cut spending at the moment, how advertisers are adapting their approach to measurement, and what is happening in the industry as more marketers begin to embrace the opportunity to shift spend at a higher velocity. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Principal Analyst Max Willens, Nielsen's Head of Performance Marketing Alison Gensheimer, and SVP and Head of Advertisers and Agencies Matthew Devitt. Listen everywhere, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

Media effectiveness platform DoubleVerify rolled out streaming TV products on Thursday designed to improve transparency and advertising quality in connected TV (CTV). DV’s new tools offer hope to marketers who are relying on CTV more amid shifting viewing habits but who struggle with placement and measurement.

The NBA is experiencing one of its biggest advertising booms in decades following a record $76 billion media rights deal with Disney, NBC, and Amazon. Ad spend on NBA programming jumped 15% last season to $1.52 billion, with NBCUniversal selling out its first-year inventory after returning to coverage for the first time in 23 years. ESPN, ABC, and Prime Video are also thriving—drawing hundreds of advertisers across broadcast and streaming. Amazon is fusing ecommerce and live sports with shoppable ad formats, while NBC and Disney leverage cross-platform studio content. The result: the NBA is redefining what live sports monetization looks like.

A new Billion Dollar Boy study shows marketers are spending more on AI-generated creator content—even as audiences grow wary. Seventy-nine percent of marketers increased AI investment this year, and 77% plan to shift more budget to AI-driven creator campaigns. Yet audience enthusiasm for AI content has plunged from 60% in 2023 to 26% in 2025, reflecting frustration with formulaic, unlabeled “AI slop.” As the creator economy enters its “post-AI” phase, the challenge isn’t whether to use AI—it’s how to use it without losing authenticity.

Meta’s Q2 2025 earnings showed the company thriving despite softening engagement in mature markets. Revenue surged 22% YoY to $47.52 billion, largely driven by better ad pricing, AI-optimized performance tools, and growing monetization via WhatsApp. Although user growth was modest, Meta demonstrated strong pricing power—especially in North America and Europe—and continues to see big potential in Asia-Pacific. Operating margins remained healthy at 43%, even with record AI investments. As Meta extracts more value per user and expands monetization across platforms, its performance proves that engagement isn’t the only growth lever—it’s how well each session gets monetized.

The situation: Amazon and Google, once bound by a symbiotic relationship in which Amazon funneled ad dollars into Google Search and Google indexed Amazon’s pages, are now veering toward open conflict as generative AI (genAI) blurs the lines between ecommerce, advertising, and search. Both companies are determined to own the entire journey from discovery to checkout, and that ambition is unraveling what remains of their former détente. Our take: Amazon and Google are racing to define where and how consumers discover and buy products in the genAI era. If Amazon succeeds in walling off its marketplace data and steering shoppers to its own AI interfaces, the retail landscape could splinter into walled gardens where tech giants cooperate far less. That winner‑takes‑all dynamic might suit the victors, but it risks degrading the overall consumer experience with fewer choices and less transparent pricing. At the same time, it could lead brands and retailers into a margin‑sapping race to the bottom inside whichever closed ecosystem proves most dominant.

The news: Meta’s AI app is drawing backlash as users unknowingly publish private chats—some serious—under real names due to a confusing share feature, per TechCrunch. Many people thought they were using the chatbot or saving notes in private, only to find that their prompts—which included topics like gender identity, medical concerns, tax evasion, and job interviews—were visible to strangers. Our take: This episode poses significant issues for Meta regarding the metaverse, AI, and advertising.

Connected TV (CTV) is booming in households and becoming significantly more important for advertisers.

As advertisers navigate Google’s recent search changes that favor its emerging AI models, retail media strategies could offer them heightened visibility and control.

The news: Quality control is a growing fear for advertisers as an Adweek investigation found ads from major brands appeared near offensive and inappropriate content. Ads from brands like Amazon and Verizon were found near sexual or racially offensive content on the Android short-form video app XShorts. Our take: Advertisers are increasingly faced with a digital landscape where programmatic ad buying lacks the quality control required to keep up with rapid innovation and demand for ad space—prompting renewed calls for transparency, verification, and human oversight in automated systems.

The news: The Trade Desk unveiled Deal Desk, a new tool to fix the inefficiencies in private marketplace buying, where up to 90% of structured deal IDs fail to scale. By automating deal creation via API and surfacing metadata like fit and availability, Deal Desk aims to save time and unlock premium inventory. Our take: As PMP spending overtakes open exchange buys, The Trade Desk is shoring up the backend infrastructure that supports this shift. Deal Desk positions the company to capture more high-value spend and offers a cleaner path to scale in a fragmented programmatic landscape.

The news: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) gave a glimpse of the TV (CTV) advertising’s future at its IAB Tech Lab event—and proved that pause ads are leading the way. Advertising leaders said they offer the best user experience, were most likely to scale with standardization, and provided the greatest increase in ad spend. Our take: The future of CTV advertising will rely on whether advertisers can implement non-intrusive formats that capture attention. Pause ads are positioned to drive action—but advertisers must reimagine their creative strategy to capitalize on this potential.

President Trump’s volatile tariff policies have created uncertainty in the advertising market, with forecasters now projecting multiple scenarios for how the rest of 2025 might unfold.