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Climbing the mountain … slowly. Paramount reduced losses on its DTC streaming by 5% in the past year while adding around 700,000 Paramount+ subscribers during the quarter — vs. forecasts of a loss — upping the service’s total base to 61 million users. There were also encouraging signs in the streamer’s digital ad business.
The new math? A major sticking point in recent Hollywood negotiations is fair compensation for contributions to streaming content. But the math to value content, both for producers and advertisers is confusingly complex. Parrot Analytics described the process of putting together a profitable streaming lineup as “akin to playing 3D chess while blindfolded on a roller coaster.”
Slings and down arrows. Sling TV’s parent company, Dish, revealed that its streaming subsidiary lost 97,000 subscribers in the second quarter. It lost 55,000 in the same period last year and now sits at its lowest subscriber base in almost six years.
Didn’t mean to bug you. Users of the YouTube TV app on iOS and iPadOS are reporting a playback bug according to user posts on Reddit. Both live streams and DVR content can freeze while displaying the loading icon. The YouTube engineering team is aware of the issue but sources say there is likely no quick fix.
In Search Of
Spider repellent? OpenAI has released a new webcrawler onto the net called GPTBot. The bot will collect data from the internet to train AI models. Site owners, however, can opt-out of allowing data collection from their sites by adding a GPTBot exclusion their code.
Bing Chat going on safari. Well, “in” Safari, and Chrome, too, if Microsoft has their way. The company announced that it will soon roll out AI-powered Bing to third-party browsers on web and mobile.
On the trail to the trial. A California judge denied Google’s request for summary judgement in a $5 billion class action suit against the search giant. Plaintiffs claim Google secretly tracked online activity of users even when they were using the browser in the privacy-oriented “Incognito” mode.
Ear Buds
Hears the beef! With nearly 47,000 spots airing, Wendy’s is at the top of the weekly radio advertiser charts for the first time ever. The QSR aired about twice as many as its next category competitor, McDonalds. It took the top spot from last week’s winner, Babbel.
Now hear this. A study on media attentiveness that compared audio ads on AM/FM radio and podcasts with visual ads such as TV and online display generated interesting findings. Research suggests that, not only can audio advertising hold its own with TV but that it may also outperform the visual media in generating attentiveness and brand recall.
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