Village Soapbox: NewsNation, Audacy, Pandora, Roku vs. Google, Amazon and More

Legends & Leaders (video)

Nexstar's Perry Sook on the Future of News, TV Station Business, NFL, and NewsNation Jack Myers
What is Nexstar's secret to success and how is Nexstar incentivizing managers to increase diversity? Get the inside scoop in this week's edition of Legends & Leaders..

Knowledge Exchange

Major Radio Player Audacy Modernizes a Durable Medium.
Jim Motavalli looks at how a broadcast medium, like radio, can be data-centric as well.

Mapping the Mainstreaming of Addressable TV at DISH.
(Free Download of The Transformation of Television study from Forrester Consulting in the article) Charlene Weisler talks to DISH about their approach in working with their traditional competitive set with a goal of scaling up addressable advertising.

Boundless Curiosity Ignites Passion and Purpose (video)
Watch the latest episode of Raquelle Zuzarte's Storytelling Revolution as Raquelle speaks with Smithsonian Media CRO Amy Wilkins on how the thirst for knowledge and boundless curiosity drives their business.

Disruption Can Transform Agency Cultures.
Alli Romano reached out to the 4A's and several advertising agency executives to discover the far-reaching impact that the past year has had on agency life.

Moving the Local / National Spot TV Needle at MAGNA.
Simon Applebaum gets an update on the latest tools for local from MAGNA's Executive Vice President, Local Investment Kathy Doyle.

The Future According to Rishad Tobaccowala.
Who better to foretell the future than one of our industry's most respected futurists? Rishad Tobaccowala gives us his view, and gratefully, it is optimistic.

Advancing Diversity

DEI and the Crisis in Media and Advertising w/Mike Paul The Reputation Doctor (audio)
In this week's episode of The Pool, Philip McKenzie welcomes Mike Paul, a renowned PR expert to discuss his journey and the DEI issues at the executive level.

Multicultural TV Talk with Actor Quincy Chad (video)
Juan Ayala speaks with Quincy Chad who stars in FX's Snowfall. Get some great insider Hollywood stories in this week's episode.

YouTube Originals' "Glad You Asked" Educates and Aggravates (In the Right Way).
Ainsley Andrade reviews an educational YouTube original series that is currently tackling systemic bias and racism in a way that is unique and relatable to Millennials. He likes it and find out why you should check it out.

To Advance Women, Pandora Spotlights the 'Fempire'
Alli Romano takes a look at Pandora's latest public service campaign to promote leadership and diversity through audio to the audio and advertising industries.

Women in Fintech: At the Forefront of Making Crypto and Lending More Inclusive.
Meet some of the women that are leading a generational change in the financial sector with Crypto as part of the She's Next Conversation series, sponsored by Visa, brought to you by The FQ.

America's Navy: Forged by a Sea … of Whiteness.
Christopher Boulton takes a look at a recent Navy diversity report and its recommendations and questions why its advertising agency team isn't exactly reflective of those insights.

This Week in Media

HP Enterprise brought a good portion of their media planning/buying in-house with a focus on programmatic.

If you think retransmission rights might end with the cable era, you probably want to pay attention to what's happening with Roku and YouTube TV at the moment. Roku has pulled the YouTube TV app from their app store as the current distribution deal has expired and no new agreement (as of this writing) has been completed. Roku is claiming that Google is requesting deeper than normal access to customer data and is pushing hardware requirements including the acceptance of AV1 (an open royalty-free video coding format). Google is saying that Roku is just playing hardball.

The four major broadcast networks have filed a lawsuit against Locast, which "for a donation" allows consumers in 31 markets covering 51.7% of U.S. population to watch local broadcast for free.

Peacock has reached 42 million subscribers up from 33mm when last reported in January.

Amazon has announced new ad formats for Fire TV and its streaming sites like IMDb TV and Twitch. New formats include "sponsored content rows" which allow media companies to promote shows and movies with up to 10 titles in the row. These ad units will be available through programmatic.

Amazon's ad business showed a 77% increase in revenue over the past year reaching $6.9B in ad sales.

During Amazon's quarter earnings call, we learned that hours watched on Twitch has doubled over the past year. There are now 35mm monthly active users that view the entertainment service. Twitch continues to branch out beyond its core gaming content with its attention now turned to the music category.

Twitter revealed, during its quarterly earnings call, that it grew its user base by 20% to 199mm. However, its guidance and relative weak performance vs. its rivals pushed its stock price lower.

Here's an interesting tidbit from Snapchat. Snapchat now has around 280mm global users, with 50% of recent growth coming from outside of North America. In part, because of that growth, Snapchat now has more users on Android than on iOS for the first time.

Microsoft reported that LinkedIn now has 756mm members. Hours spent on LinkedIn increased by 80% over the year which may be a good thing for LinkedIn but is still a sign that our economy has challenges given that job search and career networks is the raison d'etre of the service.

Facebook reported revenue of $26.17B, up 48% from the year prior, with net income growing 94%. They did warn of headwinds caused by Apple's iOS 14.5 update that makes ad tracking more transparent and gives consumers the ability to deny tracking. Facebook's user base of 195MM in the U.S. and Canada was flat for the second consecutive quarter.

Based on figures presented during Facebook's Q1 2021 earnings call, analysts are estimating that Facebook has sold close to 5mm Oculus Quest 2 devices since its launch six months ago. This is unprecedented in the VR marketplace, as it took Sony's PlayStation VR five years to hit that same mark. Sony has announced that they will be releasing PlayStation VR2 in 2022.

Have a great weekend!

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The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.com/MyersBizNet.