COMvergence: 2025 Marcom M&A Volume Grew Slightly
Marcom M&A activity in 2025 edged higher to 55 deals, reflecting a modest rise from 2024 but still far below the 2016 peak. The sector’s focus has shifted from expansion‑driven roll‑ups to infrastructure‑led consolidation centered on AI, cloud, and data platforms. Omnicom’s acquisition of IPG, adding 53,000 staff and $10.7 billion in revenue, dwarfed the rest of the $13.1 billion transaction volume and effectively ended the “Big 6” era. Smaller, specialist deals now dominate, with two‑thirds of AI‑focused transactions occurring since 2023.
HBO Max Will Start Cracking Down on Password Sharing Globally
HBO Max announced a global crackdown on password sharing, extending stricter enforcement beyond the United States. The new policy replaces the current optional pop‑up with a mandatory prompt that requires non‑household users to create their own accounts. The rollout coincides...
New Drama About "Controversial" Interrogation of Madeleine McCann's Mother Is Coming to Channel 5
Channel 5 is set to air a feature‑length drama titled “Suspect: Kate McCann”, dramatizing the contentious 48‑hour police interrogation of Kate McCann following her daughter Madeleine’s 2007 disappearance. The film draws on official Portuguese police material, documentary evidence and recorded testimony, with...
‘Heated Rivalry’ Season 2 Expected For April 2027, Creator Jacob Tierney Says
Creator Jacob Tierney announced that production on Season 2 of the LGBTQ‑focused series “Heated Rivalry” will commence in August 2026, with a planned premiere in April 2027. The show, based on Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” novels, follows the secret romance between...
BetBoom, ESL FACEIT Group Partner for Counter-Strike 2 in Brazil
BetBoom announced a partnership to sponsor all Counter‑Strike 2 broadcasts in Brazil produced by the ESL FACEIT Group for the remainder of 2026. The deal places BetBoom branding on six flagship events, including ESL Pro League Seasons 23 and 24 and multiple IEM...
Publisher Advertising Alliance Teams up with Microsoft Ad-Buying Platform
Ozone, a coalition of more than 500 UK and US publishers, has secured its first deal to list inventory on Microsoft’s Media Marketplace, exposing over 200 million monthly users to programmatic buyers. The integration leverages Ozone’s first‑party reader data, promising more...
Sundance Road Trip Comedy ‘The Shitheads’, Starring Dave Franco & O’Shea Jackson Jr., Gets U.S. Deal With IFC
Sundance‑premiered road‑trip comedy *The Shitheads* has landed a U.S. distribution deal with IFC, slated for a theatrical summer release. The film stars Dave Franco, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Kiernan Shipka and Nicholas Braun, with a supporting turn by Peter Dinklage. Written, directed...
Meet The Producers Resurrecting Dead Hollywood Pitches Using AI
Deadline’s new column Rendering highlights a podcast, Films Not Made, launched by producers Amy Hobby and Avi Zev Weider that uses generative AI to resurrect abandoned Hollywood pitches. The show runs AI‑enhanced scripts, storyboards and even AI‑generated trailers for projects...
Fifth Season & Media Res Strike Sales Pact & Set Sweden’s ‘Summer Of 1985’ As First Project
Media Res has entered a first‑look distribution agreement with Fifth Season, designating the Swedish thriller *Summer of 1985* as the inaugural project. The series, based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel, follows a group of friends whose summer turns deadly after...
Sky & Starz Strike Co-Commission Deal As Sky Boards 50 Cent Boxing Drama ‘Fightland’
Sky has secured a first‑look agreement with Starz for the 50 Cent‑produced boxing drama Fightland, which will debut on Sky and Now TV in the UK. The series, shot in London, follows a disgraced champion seeking revenge and is executive‑produced by Curtis Jackson’s...
‘Star City’: ‘For All Mankind’ Spinoff Sets Release Date; Unveils First-Look Photos
Apple TV announced the debut of *Star City*, an eight‑episode spinoff of the acclaimed *For All Mankind*. The series launches globally on May 29, 2026 with two episodes, then releases a new episode each Friday through July 10. Set in...
Content Partners Hires Former WME Business Affairs Exec Benjamin Kram
Content Partners announced the appointment of former WME business‑affairs executive Benjamin Kram as Vice President. Kram will lead business development, expanding the firm’s content investments and strategic partnerships. He brings extensive negotiation experience across film, television and digital media from...
Freestar Introduces pubOS, a Unified Publisher Operating System Built to Replace Fragmented Solutions and Navigate the AI Age
Freestar launched pubOS, a unified Publisher Operating System that replaces fragmented ad‑tech stacks with a single, integrated platform. The solution combines Freestar’s proprietary monetization tools—including a custom Prebid wrapper and AI‑driven yield engine—with a marketplace of identity, compliance, and analytics...
What’s Next For Nexstar? More Growth For The CW, NewsNation
Nexstar Media Group posted its fourth‑quarter 2025 results, beating Wall Street revenue forecasts while slipping into a net loss. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow fell sharply compared with the prior year. CEO Perry Sook highlighted the company’s aggressive...
‘This Is Buzz:’ Mark Pellington’s Experimental Slamdance Title Inspired By The Cult MTV Show Lands North American Distribution Deal
Starboard Entertainment has secured North American distribution rights to Mark Pellington’s experimental documentary *This Is Buzz*, which premiered at the 2026 Slamdance Film Festival. The film, a music‑driven exploration of the 1990s MTV cult series *Buzz*, will open theatrically in...
Google Opens 'Text Guidelines' To More Advertisers
Google is expanding its AI‑driven "text guidelines" feature to all AI Max and Performance Max advertisers in a global beta. The tool lets brands specify terms or concepts to include or exclude, ensuring AI‑generated headlines and descriptions stay on‑brand, tone‑appropriate,...
The Circuit Group Launches Indie Artist and Label Services Arm, Beat Switch
The Circuit Group has officially launched Beat Switch Music Services, a white‑label infrastructure offering for independent labels and artists. After two years of silent development, the division now supports more than 20 indie labels, providing distribution, rights management, publishing, marketing,...
Atresplayer Deepens Partnership with Claro Video in Latam
Atresplayer, the streaming arm of Spain’s Atresmedia, has broadened its partnership with Claro Video, embedding its entire video‑on‑demand catalog and four flagship linear channels into the Claro platform across 14 Latin American markets, including Mexico. The deal upgrades the 2021...
IAB Unveils 2026 NewFronts, Marking a Defining Moment for Streaming, CTV, and AI-Powered Video
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the 2026 NewFronts event, scheduled for March 23‑26 in New York, spotlighting AI‑driven video, streaming, and CTV innovations. The four‑day conference will feature live and virtual sessions from tech giants like Google, Meta, and...
Last Year Was A Deadly One For Journalists: 129 Were Killed Reporting On Conflicts
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported a record 129 journalists and media workers killed in 2025, with roughly two‑thirds of those deaths attributed to Israeli actions. The deadliest single incident was a Houthi‑targeted strike in Yemen that claimed 31 lives,...
Reporting Andrew Arrest, Robot Reporters at Mediahuis and Dom’s Verdict on Prince Harry Trial
The Future of Media Explained podcast examined how journalists disclosed the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten‑Windsor, weighing the public interest against privacy concerns. It revealed Mediahuis’s initiative to deploy AI agents for generating first‑line news stories, signaling a shift toward automated...
How to Cover Child Welfare — and Not Just the System
The article urges journalists to place children and families at the center of child‑welfare reporting, questioning the language and systemic biases that often obscure lived experiences. It highlights the need to move beyond crisis‑driven stories, showing how sensational coverage can...
AI Versus Accuracy? We’re Willing to Make the Trade-Off.
Researchers at Northwestern’s GAIN initiative and the Center for News, Technology, and Innovation found that news readers overwhelmingly prefer AI chatbots and summarization tools over direct visits to publisher sites, valuing speed, perceived neutrality, and control. Participants acknowledge the answers...
RTL Deutschland Seals Sony Pictures Deal for RTL+ and Free-TV
RTL Deutschland has signed a new agreement with Sony Pictures Entertainment Deutschland, delivering a substantial package of Sony films to its streaming platform RTL+ and free‑TV channels. The deal covers the second pay‑window, granting RTL+ early and exclusive access to...
UK and US Consider Further Regulation to Protect Live Sport on FTA TV
Governments in the UK and US are weighing new rules to safeguard live sport on free‑to‑air television. In Britain, Labour MPs are pushing to broaden the ‘crown jewels’ list of protected events, a framework unchanged since 1998. In the United...
Why AI Gives Media Companies a Syncing Feeling
Artificial intelligence has become inseparable from media strategy, yet a pronounced syncing gap threatens its impact. Consumers adopt generative AI tools at breakneck speed, while media firms struggle to translate that demand into sustainable revenue. AI shows clear productivity gains...
‘End Streaming Fraud.’
Streaming fraud—artificial plays generated by bots and AI‑created content—is siphoning royalties from legitimate artists, songwriters, and labels. Fraudsters exploit gaps in distributor and platform safeguards, inflating streams to capture revenue from the finite pool that streaming services allocate. The IFPI...
UK News Giants Form ‘NATO for News’ Group to Control AI Scraping
Five leading UK news organisations—Financial Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, BBC and Sky News—have created the Standards for Publisher Usage Rights (SPUR) coalition to develop shared AI licensing standards. The group aims to curb unlicensed scraping of journalistic content by...
CTV Is Defining the Future of Streaming Ads
Connected TVs now reach over 85% of U.S. households, with roughly 60% of Gen Z streaming on them, and have surpassed cable as the primary source of video consumption in 2025. Advertisers are shifting focus to CTV because it gathers the...
Chelsea Citizen Banks Campaign Wins and Local Goodwill, but yet to Turn Profit
The Chelsea Citizen, a hyper‑local news site launched a year ago in London’s affluent Chelsea and Kensington borough, has leveraged campaigning journalism to influence council decisions and attract high‑profile support. Notable victories include halting a proposed 29‑storey Battersea tower and...
Why Most Live Streams Won't Exist in 30 Days
Live streaming generated roughly $78 billion in 2025 and approaches $100 billion by 2024, yet most platforms delete recordings within days or weeks. Twitch, Instagram Live, and TikTok Live automatically purge VODs, while YouTube’s archival is optional and often de‑prioritized. This creates...
Agencies Using Open, AI-Driven Media Buying Are Outperforming the Market – AI Digital’s Open Garden Framework Animation Shows Exactly Why
AI Digital unveiled an animated explainer of its Open Garden Framework, highlighting how AI‑driven, open‑ecosystem media buying outperforms closed‑platform approaches. The data shows advertisers achieve 2.9‑times higher performance, 26% greater ROI, and make decisions 73% faster when leveraging predictive analytics...
Report: The Future of Sport Is Multi-Format, Multi-Channel Offerings
Altman Solon’s seventh Annual Global Sports Survey warns that linear TV can no longer anchor sports consumption. Executives are urged to shift toward multi‑format, multi‑channel offerings that blend live games, highlights, and interactive content. The report highlights a 6 percent rise in...
AdPlayer.Pro Introduces New Results-Driven Features in Its Ad-Enabled Video Player
AdPlayer.Pro has rolled out new configuration capabilities for its ad‑enabled video player, targeting both instream and standalone video placements. The updates expand ad‑interval settings and aim to boost performance amid a market slowdown reported by over 40% of its users....
Ashwini Vaishnaw Demands Fair Revenue Share for Content Creators
India’s Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw urged social media platforms to adopt a fair‑revenue‑share model that compensates journalists, newsrooms, independent creators, influencers and academics. He framed the demand as a correction needed as synthetic media and misinformation proliferate online....
Campaign Big Global Awards 2026: Winners Revealed
The Campaign Big Global Awards 2026 have announced their winners, with agencies from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas taking top honors. VCCP and Serviceplan emerged as the most celebrated firms, each securing multiple category wins. The results underscore the...
Veritone Renews Licensing Deal with U.S. Soccer
Veritone has renewed its multi‑year licensing agreement with the U.S. Soccer Federation, extending access to the league’s archive through the Veritone Digital Media Hub. The AI‑driven platform will index full matches, highlights, interviews and multi‑camera angles, making footage searchable and...
BeIN Extends F1 Rights Across 10 Asian Territories
beIN Asia Pacific has extended its exclusive Formula 1 broadcast partnership through the 2030 season, covering ten Asian territories. The agreement secures live transmission of every Grand Prix, practice, qualifying, Sprint and related feeder series such as Formula 2, Formula 3, F1 Academy...
WPP Launches New Elevate28 Strategy with Four Core Divisions and £500m Savings
WPP unveiled its Elevate28 strategy, reorganising the group into four core divisions and targeting £500 million in savings over the next three years. The plan places media at the centre of growth, reflecting a shift after a 5.4% revenue decline in...
Uncommon Hires Lola Neves as Head of Planning
Uncommon has appointed Lola Neves as its new head of planning, bringing a seasoned strategic mind to the agency. Neves previously served as chief strategy officer at Neverland, where she oversaw multi‑channel brand initiatives. Her move reflects Uncommon’s ambition to...
Shiine Media Drives Rooftop Rideshare OOH Growth Across WA
Shiine Media, a Perth‑based rooftop rideshare OOH operator, is experiencing rising demand for its mobile digital inventory as advertisers target events and nightlife districts. The company runs 20 rideshare vehicles equipped with 40 programmable LED panels that can be geofenced...
Four Years On: Strengthening Independent Media in Ukraine
Four years into Russia's invasion, WAN‑IFRA’s Stronger Together programme continues bolstering Ukraine’s regional media with grants, investigative‑journalism training, and digital‑transformation support. The initiative has helped newsrooms publish over 90 investigative pieces while improving business models and leadership capacity. A new...
Will Andrew Bring Down the Monarchy? – Podcast
The Guardian’s "Today in Focus" podcast examines Prince Andrew’s trade‑envoy scandal as MPs vote to release related documents. Andrew was recently arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office and continues to deny wrongdoing tied to Jeffrey Epstein. The episode...
CTV Fueled Magnite’s Q4 Growth As Display Falters
Magnite reported Q4 revenue of $205 million, a 6% year‑over‑year increase, driven largely by its fast‑growing connected‑TV (CTV) segment. While the DV+ platform’s display revenue grew modestly 4% to $101.5 million, CTV revenue surged 32% to $93.6 million, representing 48% of the quarter’s...
AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron Lauds ‘Besties’ Netflix Relationship
AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron highlighted the growing partnership with Netflix, noting that exclusive theatrical events such as the KPop Demon Hunters premiere and the Stranger Things series finale drove 35% of the film's total audience and generated $15 million in...
Netflix Unscripted Live Events Head Sahara Bushue Exits
Netflix’s unscripted live events division is undergoing a leadership change as Sahara Bushue, the director of unscripted series, has left the company. Bushue was responsible for recent projects such as the Star Search reboot, Rhythm & Flow, and Building the...
Media Needs ‘Self-Critical Reflection’ After Years of Negative Trump Coverage, Axel Springer CEO Says
Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner urged media outlets to conduct a self‑critical reflection after repeatedly misreading Donald Trump’s electoral appeal, calling the coverage predictable and polarising. Speaking at Semafor’s “Restoring Trust in Media” summit, he highlighted the need for curiosity‑driven...
IPA Names DEI Champions on iList 2026 Shortlist
The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has released the iList 2026 shortlist, highlighting agencies that have demonstrated outstanding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The shortlist features a select group of agencies that will be interviewed by a panel...
Nexstar, Scripps, Sinclair Express Regulatory Optimism
Broadcasters are buoyed by FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s hints of relaxed ownership rules and a Trump endorsement of Nexstar’s $6 billion Tegna acquisition. Nexstar, Scripps and Sinclair all highlighted this regulatory optimism in recent earnings calls, stressing strategic M&A and operational...
USA TODAY Co Inc (TDAY) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
USA TODAY Co. reported Q4 2025 revenue of $585 million, down 5.8% year‑over‑year, while adjusted EBITDA rose 16.6% to $91.1 million, marking its strongest profitability in four years. Digital revenues hit an all‑time high, representing 47% of total revenue and driving a...