100% Media Roundup: 27 June- 1 July
This is a daily digest of news stories from around the media world, updated by The Media Leader team, to ensure you’re 100% up-to-date.
Friday, 1 July
Amazon Prime Video UK and BT Sport to share UEFA Champion’s League broadcast from 2024
Amazon Prime Video UK has secured rights to exclusively broadcast Tuesday night top-pick matches of the UEFA Champions League tournament for three seasons from 2024/25, ending BT Sport’s exclusive broadcast rights.
These Tuesday night fixtures will always feature an English team in the group stages, and depending on qualification, into the semi finals.
However, BT Sport has retained the broadcast rights to the majority of the UEFA Champions League games, plus all UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League live matches for a further three seasons from 2024.
This deal includes highlights and in-match clips, and means all of the finals will remain available for all to watch.
OMD UK appoints ex-Carat exec as managing director and promotes in-house for chief client experience officer
OMD UK has hired Grant Burke (pictured- below left) as its new managing director.
Most recently he was client managing director at Carat, starting at the Dentsu media agency more than 13 years ago as an account manager.
He led key accounts like General Motors, Mastercard, Lionsgate and Wickes and helped secure new business from Co-op and Beiersdorf.
Burke has been a Fast Forward mentor with the advertising and media industry’s wellbeing charity NABS for six years.
Kat De Keyser (pictured- above right) has also been promoted to chief client experience officer.
She has been working at OMD since 2006 when she joined as a planner, and has worked on the Mercedes and Lidl accounts.
They will both report to Lauran Fenton, OMD UK CEO.
Twitch announces Guest Star feature
Twitch has announced a new Guest Star feature that will allow streamers to invite up to five guests into their streams, according to reports.
Streamers will be able to manage their guests – who can hop in via desktop or mobile – fluidly.
The feature is first launching only for certain users active in the Just Chatting section, where streamers speak to and interact with their audience without playing games or partaking in other activities.
Guest Star will open up to all Twitch users sometime later this year.
NBCUniversal wraps record-breaking upfront
NBCUniversal wrapped its upfront season Thursday, the company’s highest-grossing upfront since Comcast acquired it in 2013.
Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, pulled in excess of $1bn worth of commitments, amounting to nearly 20% year-over-year growth.
Similar 20% growth was seen in broadcast entertainment.
Love Island Season 8 reaches 100 million streams
Love Island Season 8 reached 100 million streams this week, according to ITVHub.
It’s the fastest Love Island series to reach that milestone, and is ITV’s most-streamed title of 2022 thus far.
ITV noted that Love Island is “unique in having a huge ‘appointment to view’ audience in streaming”, stating that 64% of the streaming audience that watches on the night of the broadcast watches the show either live or during the timeslot using the ‘start again’ feature.
Meta warns staff of ‘fierce headwinds’
Meta is warning its staff of a more difficult second half of the year, according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters.
Chief product officer Chris Cox wrote in the memo that the company will need to “prioritize ruthlessly” and “executive flawlessly” in the coming months, stating that “we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce”, alluding to slower growth.
Investors have been spooked by rising interest rates, with US stocks suffering the worst first-half performance since 1970.
Meta’s stock has dipped over 52% year-to-date.
Twitter launches Branded Likes feature
Twitter is launching a Branded Likes feature, which will let advertisers customize Twitter’s like button animation for 24 hours.
The Likes will appear on any organic or promoted Tweets that contain advertiser-selected hashtags.
The feature is available for managed advertisers attempting to reach consumers in the US, UK, Saudi Arabia, and Japan to begin with.
We’re launching #BrandedLikes, a feature that lets advertisers customize Twitter’s Like button animation for 24 hours.
Branded Likes will appear on any organic or promoted Tweets that contain the advertiser-selected hashtags after an individual has liked that Tweet. pic.twitter.com/mBRRTWtAru
— Twitter Business (@TwitterBusiness) June 30, 2022
Climate tech startups show UK CO2e emissions via UK OOH for first time
Climate tech start-ups Doconomy and Kayrros have launched a digital outdoor campaign showing weekly snapshots of the UK carbon emissions footprint using satellite technology.
These emissions are calculated from energy, industry, road transportation and domestic aviation and will be shown across Ocean Outdoor digital roadside screens in London this week as part of London Climate Action Week.
The initiative aims to track progress towards 2030 emissions-reduction targets at traffic hotspots including the A40 and Hammersmith.
S4 Capital enters ‘conditional combination’ between XX Artists and Media.Monks
S4 Capital has expanded its social media marketing capabilities and client base through a partnership with XX Artists and Media.Monks.
XX Artists is a social media marketing agency founded in 2018 by Kyle Kuhns which has a team of 125 globally with clients such as Google, YouTube, Logitech and Ancestry.com.
In 2021, the agency generated gross profit in excess of $12m, marking growth of over 100% year-on-year.
Sir Martin Sorrell, S4Capital executive chairman said, “Their exciting growth, diverse talent base and prestigious clients will help fuel the development of our best-in-class social media capabilities in the United States and internationally.”
Thursday, 30 June
Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi looks at acquiring Channel 4
MediaForEurope (MFE), owned by family of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, has announced it will look at purchasing Channel 4 when it is put on sale.
MFE’s finance chief Marco Giordani is reported to have said on Wednesday: “When it is put on the block, we will surely look at it.”
MFE was previously known as Mediaset and is Italy’s largest private broadcaster.
Bauer Media Audio launches app for Meta Portal devices
Bauer Media Audio has released its live radio app for Facebook users: Meta Portal, Portal Go and Portal+ devices.
The app will make live radio streams from Bauer Media Audio’s UK brands available on Portal in the UK. This includes radio stations such as Absolute Radio, KISS, Magic Radio, Greatest Hits Radio, Planet Rock and more.
The broadcaster has been attempting to innovate by creating new experiences as consumers access more audio through smart speakers and smartphone/tablet apps. Bauer previously worked with Amazon to create a series of interactive skills for Echo (Alexa) devices.
Bauer Media has also announced plans to relocate and brings its audio and publishing businesses together under the same roof for the first time at a new central London location, The Lantern in Euston.
Vodafone launches outdoor first with tennis star Raducanu
Vodafone has an unveiled an “industry-first” 32 Piccadilly Lights activation in which British tennis star Emma Raducanu is featured as a digital avatar.
The multi-screen display, which launched on 27 June, promotes the brand’s Wimbledon tennis sponsorship and was created by Ocean Outdoor.
Raducanu, who won the US Open last year despite being an low-ranked teenage newcomer, now holds the distinction of being “the first ever motion-capture computer generated avatar of an athlete to appear solo in DeepScreen on the Piccadilly Lights”.
The Media Leader Interview: Why Ocean Outdoor CEO Bleakley can say the ‘new normal’ was a mirage
iHeartMedia announces first slate of podcasts from NextUp Initiative
iHeartMedia has announced its line-up of podcasts produced from its NextUp Initiative which aims to give all creators, including those from historically underrepresented groups, tools to succeed in the podcast industry.
The podcast publisher described the NextUp Initiative as a five-month long “podcasting bootcamp” where creators would receive guidance from iHeart employees around creating, editing, marketing and launching a podcast.
The first podcast now available on iHeart Radio and other podcast platforms is called Beauty Translated, hosted by Carmen Laurent and focuses on the transgender community in the South.
Substack lays off 14% of its staff
Newsletter start-up Substack is laying off 14% of its staff, or 13 of the company’s 90 employees.
The cuts are mostly to staff members in human resources and writer support functions, according to a report from The New York Times.
CEO Chris Best announced the layoffs via Twitter Wednesday, stating that the decision to let employees go is being done to ensure the company can “succeed without having to rely on outside funding” as “market conditions are bad and may get worse for an extended period of time.”
Today’s the saddest day we’ve had at Substack. We’re letting go of 13 people. Here’s the note I shared with the team. pic.twitter.com/0ycGtrIBh6
— Chris Best (@cjgbest) June 29, 2022
In May, Substack dropped its recent fundraising efforts after venture capital began drying up amid rising interest rates.
Snap debuts Snapchat+
Snap has launched its premium subscription service for Snapchat, Snapchat+.
Snapchat users in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and UAE will be able to subscribe for the price of $3.99 per month.
Features of the paid tier are minor to begin with – they include the ability to see who has rewatched your story, pin a “BFF” to the top of your chat history, and change the app icon.
In May, Snap warned that it expected to the miss revenue and earnings guidance it made at the end of Q1 amid a “deteriorated” macroeconomic environment.
Wednesday, 29 June
BPA Worldwide names Richard Murphy new President and CEO
Richard Murphy has been named the new president and CEO of global assurance provider of media, technology, events, and sustainability compliance BPA Worldwide.
Murphy (pictured—above) has worked at BPA Worldwide for 30 years, most recently as executive vice president.
He replaces Glenn Hansen, who has announced his intent to retire in June of 2023 and will serve as executive strategic advisor in the interim.
Instagram, Facebook ‘removing posts offering abortion pills’
Meta’s Facebook and Instagram have been removing posts that offer abortion pills to women who may be unable to access them following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, according to reports.
Meta has defended the decision to reporters as part of its policy that prohibits the sale of certain items, such as guns, alcohol, drugs, and pharmaceuticals on their platforms.
However, one Associated Press reporter noted that while posts regarding the mailing of abortion pills were taken down, similarly worded posts substituting “abortion pills” for “guns” or “weed” were left up.
A Meta spokesperson acknowledged ongoing issues in its policy enforcement.
Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals is not allowed. Content that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed. We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) June 27, 2022
Read more on Facebook: The ripple effects of Facebook’s changing feed
Read more on media’s response to Dobbs: Media companies’ abortion travel pledges are not enough
The Goodnet and Actionable announce exclusive partnership
The sustainability ad network The Goodnet and tech company Actionable have inked an exclusive agreement giving brands and non-profits access to interactive ad formats.
From today, any companies working with The Goodnet can use Actionable’s ActionButton format to gain insights, raise awareness and prompt user action.
Advertisers already working with Actionable will be able to put messages across the Goodnet’s network of “greener, healthier and fairer” publishers.
The Goodnet was launched last year by ex-Global execs Guy Jones and Oliver Deane.
Read more on The Goodnet: Greener, healthier, fairer: what ‘good’ means in ex-Global execs’ start-up The Goodnet
Roku and NBCUniversal Local partner to bring local news programming to streamers
Roku announced it has partnered with NBCUniversal Local to bring several NBC local news channels to The Roku Channel, Roku’s own free, ad-supported streaming service.
The partnership marks the first time local news will be available to streamers through The Roku Channel, which are now accessible through the channel’s Live TV Guide.
Local news markets arriving via NBC include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth, Washington DC, Hartford (CT), and South Florida, with additional local areas slated to be added in coming months.
Channel 4 Diversity Award returns to representation of disabled people in TV ads
Channel 4’s 2022 Diversity in Advertising Award brief challenges advertisers and agencies to pitch “exceptional” campaigns portraying disabled people in any kind of condition, either visible and/or non-visible disability at the heart of their ads.
This comes as the channel’s insight, Mirror On The Industry, found 4% of TV adverts in the UK feature disabled people in 2021, compared to 3% in 2020, and only 1% of TV ads featured disabled people in lead roles, while 22% of the UK population are disabled.
The winning ad, chosen by a judging panel of cross-industry experts, will receive £1m of commercial airtime across Channel 4, All 4 and, for the first time, Channel 4’s YouTube channel. An additional £100k social media campaign produced by 4Studio will also accompany the winning ad.
Ads must follow AdGreen guidelines provided by the Advertising Association, and five runners up will be offered £250k of match-funded commercial airtime.
Competition entries must be submitted by 4pm on 24 August 2022, with the winners announced in October and the campaign airing in early 2023.
PAMCo: more than 90% of British adults consume newsbrand or magazine media monthly
The latest PAMCo data has shown 92% of British adults consume newsbrand or magazine media content across a month.
This is the first time the dataset was based entirely on “online first”, covering the period September 2020 to March 2022 for print data, combined with March 2022 Ipsos iris digital data.
Due to these different methodologies with previous releases, PAMCo said this data should not be used for comparison with any other data release.
Read more on PAMCo: PAMCo reporting is back but only for paying members during ‘Bridge’ phase
Disney’s board extends CEO Chapek’s contract for three years
Disney’s board of directors unanimously voted to extend CEO Bob Chapek’s contract for three years, according to reports.
Chapek succeeded Bob Iger as CEO in February 2020, leading the company through a tumultuous period as the Covid pandemic disrupted Disney’s parks and productions.
Chapek received intense criticism in recent months for his initial response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and for firing entertainment chairman Peter Rice.
Shares of Disney have fallen over 38% year-to-date and rose 0.5% in premarket trading on the news.
Read more on Disney: BARB: Disney+ gains most UK household subs in Q1
Pinterest CEO steps down, fmr. Google exec takes over
Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann is stepping down, with former Google commerce exec Bill Ready stepping in to lead the social media service going forward, the company announced Tuesday.
Silbermann has served as CEO since he co-founded the company in 2010.
He will move into the newly created executive chairman role and maintain his board seat; Ready will also join the board.
Pinterest’s stock rose 9% on the news in after-hours trading, and currently sits up 6.6% as of the writing of this story.
Tuesday, 28 June
Digital UK appoints ex-C4 execs as chief product officers in job-share arrangement
Digital UK, the free TV operator, has appointed Carl Pfeiffer and Sarah Milton (pictured- below) as chief product officer on a job-share basis.
They will be responsible for product development for the UK’s free-to-view platforms, Freeview and Freesat, and the day-to-day running of TV services.
Milton was most recently head of product for Channel 4’s streaming service All4 and had worked at the public service broadcaster in video-on-demand related roles.
Pfeiffer was previously head of distribution and platform partnerships at Channel 4 and was a director on the YouView board for five years.
Merkle appoints senior leadership team for its UK experience and commerce practice
Merkle, Dentsu’s customer experience management agency, has chosen Paul Lynch as the leader of its UK experience and commerce practice.
He will lead the practice of 500 experts and service centres in Bulgaria and India, which was launched in April as part of a global strategy and investment plan.
Lynch (pictured- above) was formerly vice president and managing director of LiveArea before its acquisition in 2021.
The team reporting to him will be:
- Richard Mathias, technology strategy lead
- Paul Bidder, experience and commerce sales lead
- Ben Smith, chief operating officer
- Benoit Soucaret, chief experience officer
- Samantha Mansfield, head of strategy
- Sarah Painter, retains her role as vice president of customer service
- Andrew Chothia, client services practice lead
- Lyubomir Cholakov, leads service centres in Sofia, Bulgaria
ABC adds three new board members
The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) has welcomed three new members to its board: Sajeeda Merali, Tina Callcutt, and Nick Service.
Merali (pictured-above, left), currently the CEO of Professional Publishers Association, is joining as a permanent board member representing the needs of UK publishers.
Callcutt (pictured-above, center) serves as director of content sales at national world publishing and previously worked at Johnston Press and JPI for over 26 years in a variety of circulation management roles.
Service (pictured-above, right) is chairman of the Hemming Group and has worked on a wide portfolio of B2B titles; he will represent business media titles while on the board.
ABC’s board members are nominated by industry associations IPA, ISBA, NMA, PPA, and IAB UK.
Channel 4 working on ITN deal to keep news programme on air
Channel 4 is preparing to sign a deal to keep its news programme on air for the next five years.
This would mean that any new private owner would have to keep producing the show when the channel is privatised.
This has angered government sources, according to reports in The Guardian, which have dubbed this move a “phoney war”.
Alex Wagner named successor to Rachel Maddow at MSNBC
Washington journalist and MSNBC veteran Alex Wagner will be replacing Rachel Maddow for MSNBC’s 9pm weekday slot, according to reports.
Maddow, MSNBC’s most popular pundit and host of The Rachel Maddow Show since 2008, announced last year that she would be scaling back her presence to a weekly show on Mondays.
Wagner has been at MSNBC since 2011.
Monday, 27 June
Idris Elba ‘considering £1bn bid’ for Channel 4
Actor Idris Elba is in discussions with media entrepreneur Marc Boyan about purchasing the television broadcaster, according to a report by The Sunday Times.
Boyan is founder and CEO of communications collective Miroma Group.
The UK government began pushing ahead with its plans to privatise Channel 4 in April.
Check My Ads seeks to strip Fox News of ad revenue
Check My Ads, an organization that seeks to strip Fox News of its ad revenue, was highlighted last week in The Guardian for its effort to get ad exchanges to drop Foxnews.com.
The organization was founded by two marketing executives who have grown angry with Fox News’ coverage, which they accuse of “fueling the next insurrection.”
The Guardian notes that the campaign is unlikely to significantly harm Fox News, as it makes 95% of its revenue from cable contracts rather than advertising.
Trust in major UK news outlets falls 20%
The Times and the BBC have both seen trust in their news coverage fall 20% since 2018, according to the latest Reuters Institute Digital News report, highlighted by Press Gazette last week.
The Times fell from 63% to 43% trusted, whereas the BBC fell from 75% to 55% trusted, retaining the top spot as most trusted news brand in the UK.
The Telegraph also saw a 19% drop in trust, from 55% five years ago to just 36% in 2022.
The report also found that trust in the broadcast news media declined precipitously, but not as dramatically, with falls in trust since 2018 around 16-17% for ITV News, BBC News, and Channel 4 News.
NUJ group calls out Reach’s ‘hypocrisy’ over wages
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) group chapel has published a statement calling out The Daily Mirror-owner Reach over “hypocrisy” related to their splash about “fat-cat” wages.
The motion passed on Friday applauded the journalism behind the front page story which revealed corporate bosses were earning up to 86 times the average wage of their workers, who were often not being given pay rises in line with inflation and struggling with the rising cost-of-living.
However, it added the hypocrisy between this editorial line and Reach’s corporate policy was “breath-taking” as Reach CEO Jim Mullen received a £4m+ pay package worth 107 times that of the average Reach worker according to its last annual report.
The motion urged Reach to ensure a fair pay increase to staff this year, concluding: “Offering Reach workers 3% or £750 minimum final offer is an insult to our members who produce such fine journalism highlighting the cost of living crisis that they are being made victim of by their own company.”
“Reach must practice what it preaches and get round the table to negotiate a better pay package that will start to level up the obscene pay inequalities within the company to decent and respectful levels.”
BBC’s Amol Rajan criticised for using term “pro-life” twice on Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 presenter and former media editor, Amol Rajan, was criticised for using the term “pro-life” on two occasions on Saturday morning following the Roe v Wade decision being overturned on Friday.
Rajan first mentioned the term “pro-life”, deemed a partisan term, in a discussion with the BBC’s North America editor Sarah Smith, and then for a second time in an interview with Erica Hofland, a clinician from the Red River Women’s Clinic in North Dakota.
Women’s organisations called Rajan out on the use of the term with the deputy leader of the Women’s Equality Party, Hannah Barham-Brown, saying: “Anti-choice campaigners have long tried to hide behind the facade of being ‘pro-life’ when the reality is that they are anything but – they are really trying to restrict women’s freedoms.”
The BBC News style guide advises journalists to use “anti-abortion” rather than “pro-life” except where it is part of a group’s title.
Glastonbury artists protest Roe v Wade decision
Artists Billie Eilish (pictured- main image), Phoebe Bridgers, Olivia Rodrigo and more protested the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the 50-year-old Roe v Wade decision on a woman’s right to have an abortion.
The musicians dedicated songs and openly criticised the decision on stage in front of an estimated 200,000 festival-goers, with more watching live on BBC iPlayer.
The music festival also opened this year with a pre-recorded video address from Ukrainian president Vlodomir Zelenskyy
Elvis and Top Gun: Maverick rake in $30.5m at weekend box office
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and blockbuster juggernaut Top Gun: Maverick battled it out over the weekend in the US for top box office gross.
Both films earned over $30.5m over the weekend – Elvis in its debut and Top Gun in its fifth week.
Top Gun: Maverick also surpassed $1bn in global box office over the weekend, making it the highest-grossing film of the year ahead of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Elvis meanwhile took home an additional $20m from its 51 international markets.