Today's Media Pulse
Online video subscriptions hit 2.24 billion in 2025, overtaking pay‑TV revenue
Omdia reports global online video subscriptions reached 2.24 billion at the end of 2025, a 17.6% year‑on‑year rise. Revenue grew 13.5% to $176 billion, surpassing pay‑TV's $170 billion for the first time. Growth is expected to slow to single‑digit levels in 2026 as operators focus on monetising existing users.
Also developing:
After Trying to Buy TikTok, Adtech Giant AppLovin Launches Its Own Social Media Challenger
Ad‑tech firm AppLovin has quietly launched Gist, a new social‑media app that blends short‑form video, photo carousels and mini‑games. The move follows AppLovin’s unsuccessful bid to acquire TikTok and reflects a shift toward building its own creator‑driven traffic. Gist operates behind a referral code, features curated content categories, and is being staffed with a creator‑recruitment specialist. The launch aligns with AppLovin’s broader push into e‑commerce advertising, where its consumer‑vertical revenue grew 25% in March.
Spotify’s Podcast Play Becomes Warshaw’s Ammo in Quadrennial Fight
Spotify has extended its AI‑driven Prompted Playlist feature to automatically generate podcast line‑ups alongside music. The rollout, announced in April, is being leveraged by Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw in a filing to the FCC’s 2022 Quadrennial Review. Warshaw argues...
AI Is Redefining Premium Content – Which May Not Be A Good Thing
AI‑generated “slop” is flooding the web, prompting a redefinition of what counts as premium content. Advertisers and publishers now equate premium with engagement metrics rather than traditional production value, even as 30% of Gen Z and millennials express growing dislike for...
Former Bachelor Producer Bennett Graebner on Why Studios Bet on TV Reboots
In the first quarter of 2026, four legacy TV properties—Star Search, Fear Factor, American Gladiators and Malcolm in the Middle—were relaunched on Netflix, Fox, Prime Video and Hulu. The revivals collectively demonstrated that nostalgia‑driven IP can generate strong early‑viewership, with...
Sports TV Ad Spending to Top $20 Billion in 2027, As Live Games Defy Cord-Cutting
Sports advertising in the United States is set to exceed $20 billion in 2027, according to eMarketer data. The converged TV ad market—combining linear and connected‑TV placements around live games—will grow 27% from 2026 to 2030, nearly four times the 6.6%...
CATCHPLAY’s Screenworks Asia Partners with Korea’s SLL Joongang for Premium Co-Development as Streaming Platform Debuts New Vertical Slate and Expands...
CATCHPLAY+ marks its 10th anniversary by launching a premium vertical drama slate in Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore, backed by exclusive branding with Korean platform Sero and licensing from CJ ENM and b.able. Its production arm Screenworks Asia has teamed with...
Bob Bronson Hangs Up the Headphones at Boston’s WROR
Boston’s longtime morning voice Bob Bronson is retiring after more than five decades in radio, becoming the latest Beasley Media Group employee to take the company’s early‑retirement buyout. Bronson joined WROR in 2019 after a ten‑year stint at New York’s...
‘I’m Not Trying to Replace Him’: Meet the Media Mogul Taking over Stephen Colbert’s Time Slot on CBS
Media mogul Byron Allen is taking over CBS’s 11:35 pm “Late Show” slot with his long‑running panel series “Comics Unleashed.” Under a 16‑month lease, Allen will pay CBS for the time slot and sell his own advertising, a model CBS says will...
A Reality Check: 10 Hard Truths Creators Took Away From SocialDay
At SocialDay 2026, top creators Stevie Yessaian, Omobolaji Ajibare and Quincy Washington revealed the gritty realities of the creator economy. They emphasized that viral moments are fleeting, consistency is draining, and building a sustainable business takes years. The panel highlighted...
What’s New to Streaming: May 22, 2026
This weekend’s streaming slate adds fresh mystery and thriller fare across major platforms. Apple TV debuts the original series “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” starring Tatiana Maslany, while Hulu and Disney+ introduce the four‑episode true‑crime docuseries “World Wide Mafia ’Ndrangheta.” Prime Video...
Spotify Uses AI Pods to Sidestep Royalty Splits
This is less a "people want this" play than a business model play. Spotify pays ~70% to rights holders before running costs of biz. Labels block them from becoming a label themselves, so they moved into pods bigtime. AI pods...
“American Ground Radio” Launches on Salem’s WWRC, Washington
American Ground Radio debuted on Salem Media’s WWRC‑AM (570 The Answer) at 7 a.m., featuring hosts Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. The show promises a conversational format that links traditional American values with current national issues, and includes guest interviews, listener call‑ins,...
Spotify Launches Creator Monetization Push With Fan Remix Tool, Podcast Memberships
Spotify announced two new creator‑monetization tools at its 2026 Investor Day. A licensed fan remix add‑on, backed by agreements with Universal Music Group and Universal Music Publishing, lets Premium users create and profit from covers and remixes. The company also...
Hollywood Just Drew a Line in the Sand on AI Actors... Which Bollywood Already Crossed.
SAG-AFTRA’s tentative agreement with the AMPTP opens limited AI use in Hollywood, allowing digital replicas only when they deliver "significant additional value" and imposing a higher threshold for fully synthetic AI actors. The deal bans consent‑free language dubbing of replicas...
Social Commerce Won’t Scale the Way Brands Expect – Deloitte’s Dennis Ortiz Says Start With Creators
Deloitte partner Dennis Ortiz warns that U.S. social commerce will not scale like China’s live‑shopping model because major platforms lack end‑to‑end fulfillment infrastructure. His 2026 Digital Media Trends survey shows 70% of Gen Z and millennials discover products on social but...
Billion Dollar Boy Unveils Creator-Led Social Hubs to Help Brands Manage Local Presence at Scale
Billion Dollar Boy has introduced Social Hubs, a creator‑led operating model that places regional production teams under a central technology platform called Companion. The model was piloted with Lipton across six European markets, delivering 924 million views and a 281% year‑over‑year...
Rao Named WNYC / Gothamist Culture Reporter
Public media outlet WNYC announced that veteran journalist Sonia Rao will serve as the culture reporter for its combined WNYC/Gothamist newsroom. Rao, who spent the past decade covering arts and culture at The Washington Post, will focus on film, television,...
When Hope Calls: Season Four Renewal Set for Great American Family Series
Great American Family has officially renewed the period drama "When Hope Calls: Brookfield" for a fourth season, following the wrap of its third season earlier this month. The series, a spin‑off of the popular "When Calls the Heart," features an...
Prison Break: Hulu Reboot to Begin Filming Next Month, Recasting Announced
Hulu is set to launch a new Prison Break reboot, with principal photography slated for June in Los Angeles. The 63‑day production will benefit from an $18.9 million California tax credit and carries an estimated budget of $53.2 million. A fresh ensemble...
Audio-Generation App Huxe, Founded by Former NotebookLM Developers, Shuts Down
Huxe, an AI‑powered podcast‑generation app founded by former NotebookLM engineers, announced it will shut down, removing the app from app stores and deleting user data after a brief grace period. The startup raised $4.6 million from investors including Conviction, Genius Ventures,...
Stop Wasting Ad Dollars: How Social Optimization Changes the Math
Social ad spend is set to hit $317 billion in 2026, outpacing all other digital channels, yet inefficiency is eroding value. The ANA reports programmatic waste has risen 34% to $26.8 billion, with 36.5% of impressions failing quality standards. Integral Ad Science’s...
Parker Publishers Debuts Alpaca Authors, First Independent Imprint Powered by Market‑Prediction AI
Parker Publishers has launched Alpaca Authors, the first independent publishing imprint built entirely around market‑prediction algorithms. The imprint blends AI, real‑time sales data and editorial judgment to certify a book’s audience before any production spend, promising a data‑first approach to...
HBO’s ‘Rooster’ Spurs Hollywood to Rethink Comedy Development
HBO’s new comedy ‘Rooster’ logged 6.5 million U.S. viewers, the network’s biggest comedy debut in 15 years, prompting studios to favor broader‑appeal humor. Netflix, Prime Video and Apple TV are adjusting their comedy slates in response to mixed results from breezy...
AI Search May Be Helping The Media
Fast Company reports that AI search is reshaping media traffic, turning citation prominence in AI-generated answers into a new proxy for relevance and authority. While traditional page views may decline, being cited by AI models can boost a outlet's perceived...
Why Broadcast Is Losing Ad Dollars Despite Massive Reach
Broadcast television still reaches massive audiences, but advertisers are pulling dollars because broadcasters cannot deliver real‑time proof of performance. Platforms like Netflix, Amazon and programmatic DSPs win spend by instantly showing who saw an ad, what they did next, and...
Substack’s CEO on AI Slop, Free Speech, and Taking on YouTube
In this episode, Substack CEO Chris Best discusses the platform’s steady growth, the launch of the Substack app, and its ambition to become the internet’s intellectual and cultural hub. He addresses concerns about creator payouts, AI‑generated content, moderation, and free‑speech...
OpenAI Releases ChatGPT Ads Manager Updates & Ads Tests
OpenAI announced three upgrades to its ChatGPT Ads Manager: daily budget options, granular geo‑targeting by state, DMA or ZIP code, and aggregate list‑view totals for impressions, clicks and spend. The changes apply to new campaigns, with daily budgets limited to...
Twitter Now Suppresses Tweets with Handles and Links
Actually, an unfortunate nuance here. Twitter changed its algorithm post-Elon so that tweets with user handles and/or links in them get very little visibility (suppressed). So the norm evolved. So authors/brands lose credit, links (context and value) gets cut off....
AZ8 Launches Canvas-Based AI Video Creation Workspace
AZ8 has unveiled AZ8 Studio, a canvas‑based AI creation workspace that lets users arrange text, image, video, audio and 3D nodes on an infinite canvas. The platform centralizes prompts, assets and generated outputs, enabling step‑by‑step project building and real‑time collaboration...
Programmatic Advertising Expands to Car LED Screens
Adtelligent, Uklon Ads, and Advision have launched a programmatic advertising solution that places LED screens on the roofs of Uklon partner cars in Ukraine. The system integrates Adtelligent’s real‑time bidding technology with Advision’s CMS, allowing brands to buy moving DOOH...
WME’s Erin Junkin Says TV Deal Sizes Shrink Yet Agency Hits Record Activity
Erin Junkin, senior partner and co‑head of scripted television at WME, told TheWrap that while average TV deal sizes have contracted, the agency’s overall scripted TV business is busier than ever. The comment highlights a market where platforms are tightening...
Later Launches Creator AEO to Optimize Brands for AI Answer Boxes
Later unveiled Creator AEO, a tool that lets brands optimize their presence in AI answer boxes through creator‑driven content. Powered by EdgeAI and a 136 billion‑impression dataset, the service addresses the fact that only 10% of AI‑search references come from a...
Dstillery Elevates Evan Hills to COO as AI Ad Platform Scales
Dstillery announced the promotion of Evan Hills, its chief commercial officer since 2014, to chief operating officer. The move comes as the New York‑based adtech firm expands its DS‑1 AI platform, which it says cuts audience‑activation cycles from days to...
Creator Economy Weekly Recap: Creator Qualifications, X Creator Connect, Sam’s Club, Airbnb and Roku
This week’s creator‑economy roundup highlights five major moves: IAB UK unveiled the UK’s first industry‑backed creator qualification to raise professional standards; X introduced Creator Connect, an xAI‑driven platform that matches brands with creators and manages the campaign workflow; Airbnb piloted...
CBS News Radio Ends Today. It’s a Major Loss for the US
CBS News Radio, a flagship service that has delivered hourly news updates for nearly a century, will cease operations as of May 22, 2026. The shutdown was announced by editor‑in‑chief Bari Weiss and confirmed by President Tom Cibrowski amid a...
Strategic Perspective on Digital Monetization in Europe
Europe’s digital advertising ecosystem remains highly fragmented across language, culture, regulation, and technology, making uniform strategies ineffective. GDPR and varying consent rates, coupled with the phase‑out of third‑party cookies, force publishers and marketers to prioritize localised compliance and first‑party data....
How Mediengruppe Pressedruck Uses AI to Reclaim Journalists’ Time
Mediengruppe Pressedruck, a leading German media group, built an AI‑powered Content Assistant to automate the tedious task of shortening press releases and police reports for print. Using few‑shot learning on a curated archive of 30,000 original and shortened releases, the...
Story TV Launches Daily Microdrama Serials Format in India
Story TV has introduced "Story TV Dailies," a daily micro‑drama serial format delivered in vertical video for smartphone viewers in India. The launch features three initial titles—Jinn Ki Dulhan, Magic Pen Hero, and Mast Maula Zindagi—and promises future expansions into...
The Stack: AI, Ads, Streaming
Google unveiled Gemini 3.5 Flash at I/O, promising faster coding and lower operating costs, while the UK Advertising Association readied a Cannes Lions trade mission to boost global ad exports. In the UK, a £1 million (≈$1.27 million) media fund was launched...
Stephen Colbert Says “Hello Goodbye” To Late Show
Stephen Colbert wrapped up his seven‑year tenure on CBS’s The Late Show with a star‑studded finale that featured Paul McCartney, Bryan Cranston, Ryan Reynolds, and a host of other A‑list guests. The episode highlighted a nostalgic nod to The Beatles’...
Netflix Bounces Back on Nielsen Charts with ‘Running Point’ and ‘Beef’
Netflix’s scripted series ‘Running Point’ and ‘Beef’ re‑entered Nielsen’s weekly top‑10 streaming chart, posting 772 million and 665 million minutes respectively, after a two‑week lull. The rebound highlights the streamer’s reliance on fresh originals to compete with Disney+, Prime Video and HBO...
CRTC's New Canadian Content Rules Force Netflix, Spotify to Allocate 15% of Revenue to Local Shows
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) adopted formal rules requiring streaming platforms to devote 15% of their annual Canadian revenue to Canadian content. The move, flagged as a trade irritant by the U.S. Trade Representative, will increase operating costs...
Twitch Expands Monetization Tools to All Streamers, Targeting Top‑heavy Viewership
Twitch announced on May 19 that its new suite of monetization tools—creator badge drops, custom power‑ups and broader hype‑train options—will be available to every streamer, not just affiliates or partners. The move seeks to address a platform where 21 million active...
Home & Away, Tipping Point Best in Thursday Entertainment.
Home & Away reclaimed the top spot in Thursday entertainment with 822,000 viewers, second only to the finale of The Floor this week. Seven News led the national news segment with 1.36 million viewers, while Nine News trailed closely at 1.21 million. Sports...
X Ad Revenue Still Well Below Twitter Peak, New Filings Show
X’s advertising revenue slipped to $2.3 bn in 2023, with projections of $1.7 bn in 2024 and $1.8 bn in 2025, far below the $4.7 bn generated in Twitter’s final public year. The platform’s share of the U.S. digital‑ad market shrank to roughly 1%...
This Short-Lived 6-Episode Sci-Fi Was Removed From Streaming By Its Own Network
Showtime has removed the six‑episode sci‑fi comedy *Moonbase 8* from its streaming library, joining other low‑profile series like *Kidding* and *On Becoming a God in Central Florida* that have vanished without a new home. The show, which debuted in 2020 and...
Former CBS-Owned Radio Stations Switch to ABC News Radio
Former CBS-owned stations in San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis and Los Angeles replaced CBS News Radio headlines with ABC News Radio on Thursday, ending a nine‑decade affiliation. The switch follows Paramount’s decision to wind down its news radio division and Audacy’s...
Major Studios Slam Canada For Slapping “Discriminatory Investment Obligations” On U.S. Streamers
Hollywood studios and the Streaming Innovation Alliance condemned the CRTC’s decision to force U.S. streaming services to allocate 15% of their Canadian revenues to local indie, Indigenous, French‑language and news production, labeling the rule discriminatory and a breach of USMCA...
Digital Suppression of Women’s Health Info Is Affecting Real-World Outcomes – and Government Needs to Act
Big tech platforms are increasingly shadow‑banning legitimate women’s health content, often flagging anatomical terms as adult material. A study commissioned by Essity shows 74% of 18‑34‑year‑olds turn to social media for health advice, yet women’s health posts suffer up to...
Prime Video Streams $7 M Screen‑life Thriller “Missing”, Expanding Digital Storytelling
Amazon’s Prime Video has added the screen‑life mystery thriller “Missing” to its catalog, bringing a $7 million‑budget film that topped box‑office charts in 2023 to streaming audiences. The move underscores Prime Video’s strategy to diversify its library with format‑experimental titles that...