Weekly Roundup – October 1st, 2024

"2024 is over half over but there are some big things coming in the world of cord cutting in the fourth quarter. One of the biggest will be Disney+ adding a way to access ESPN inside Disney+. Disney is slowly turning Disney+ into a one-stop shop for all its streaming.
Last month it was announced that Disney+ subscribers in the U.S. will soon have access to select live sports and studio programming from ESPN, with the addition of a dedicated ESPN area on the streaming service starting in December. This move, initially announced by CEO Bob Iger in May and confirmed with a date in August, marks a significant step in Disney’s strategy to integrate ESPN content into its streaming platforms and prepare for the launch of a standalone ESPN streaming service in 2025."

"Digital sources have become an important part of Americans’ news diets – with social media playing a crucial role, particularly for younger adults. Overall, just over half of U.S. adults (54%) say they at least sometimes get news from social media, up slightly compared with the last few years.
Facebook and YouTube outpace all other social media sites as places where Americans regularly get news. About a third of U.S. adults say they regularly get news on each of these two sites.
Smaller shares of Americans regularly get news on Instagram (20%), TikTok (17%) or X, formerly known as Twitter (12%). And even fewer get news on several other sites, including Reddit (8%), Nextdoor (5%), Snapchat (5%), WhatsApp (5%), LinkedIn (4%), Truth Social (3%) and Rumble (2%)."

"...The vast majority – 83% – of US marketing executives have concerns about advertising their brands during elections, according to Madison and Wall’s 2024 Ad Spend Forecast.
That means brands are avoiding news coverage of this year’s presidential election, said Jana Meron, VP of revenue operations and data at The Washington Post, in a presentation at this week’s Programmatic I/O event in New York City. During certain periods this year, advertisers blocked more than 40% of WaPo’s inventory over brand safety concerns, she said.
As a result, brands are missing out on the highly valuable audiences that flock to political news during campaign season, she said."

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"Over the weekend, millions of Americans watched football. They cheered, they ate, and—more than ever—they gambled. The American Gaming Association expects $35 billion in bets to be placed on NFL games in 2024, about one-third more than last year’s total.
If you follow sports, gambling is everywhere. Ads for it are all over broadcasts; more than one in three Americans now bets on sports, according to a Seton Hall poll. Before 2018, sports gambling was prohibited almost everywhere. Now it’s legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia, yielding $10 billion a year in revenue.
Readers may be quick to dismiss these developments as harmless. Many sports fans enjoy betting on the game, they say. Is it such a big deal if they do it with a company rather than their friends?
A growing body of social-science literature suggests that, yes, this is in fact quite different. The rise of sports gambling has caused a wave of financial and familial misery, one that falls disproportionately on the most economically precarious households. Six years into the experiment, the evidence is convincing: Legalizing sports gambling was a huge mistake."

"The US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability is opening an investigation on the FCC for allegedly bypassing standard procedures to benefit billionaire businessman and investor George Soros in a potential acquisition involving Audacy.
Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) and Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY) sent a letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel requesting all communications and documents related to the FCC’s handling of this case, seeking to understand if the fast-tracked decision is politically motivated."

"Paramount Global is getting ready to smack Nielsen with a ruler.
Paramount Global has told both its ad-sales staff as well as executives at prominent media-buying agencies that it is very close to ending its reliance on Nielsen ratings data, according to two people familiar with the matter, part of a move to embrace other forms of audience measurement at a time when traditional media companies are scrambling to count viewers who use digital and social media to watch their favorite programming.
The two companies have been enmeshed in discussions for months about renewing their current contract, these people said, but remain far apart on pricing. Their current deal expires on September 30, according to these people, and Paramount, which operates CBS, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, among others, would be without Nielsen audience counts starting on October 1."