Apple TV says post-Emmys week was its biggest ever, but still no hard numbers
Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva reports Apple TV had its highest weekly viewership ever for the week of September 14, up 67% year-over-year, driven by Mayday, Ted Lasso and post-Emmy surges for Widow’s Bay and Pluribus.
Warner Bros. staff brace for mass layoffs as Paramount deal clears
Puck’s Kim Masters reports that with California Attorney General Rob Bonta having settled, Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is now hitting Hollywood, with insiders describing a grim mood inside Warners over expected job cuts.
McDonald’s tests third-party ads on menu boards
Campaign US reports that McDonald’s is trialing third-party ads on digital menu boards at select US restaurants, shown post-order on self-service and drive-thru screens, per Bloomberg, opening a potential new retail media revenue stream.
Paramount launches $44 billion debt sale to fund Warner Bros. Discovery deal
TheWrap’s Jeremy Fuster reports that Paramount Skydance filed a $44 billion debt offering with the SEC, split between $32 billion in investment-grade debt and $12.4 billion in high-yield bonds, to help fund its $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery.
HBO Max tops August linear TV promo reach ranking, per iSpot
StreamTV Insider’s Bevin Fletcher reports that HBO Max ranked No. 1 in iSpot’s Streamers TV Promo Power Ranking for August, capturing 16.55% of streaming promo linear reach.
Twitch CEO ties viewership growth to clip strategy, not just livestream draw
Tubefilter’s James Hale reports that Twitch CEO Dan Clancy credits short-form clipping for driving renewed “excitement and awareness about livestreaming,” as new Streams Charts data shows August was Twitch’s best month of 2026 with 1.56 billion hours watched, up 7% year-over-year.
Just Like a Prayer: VMAs 2026 draw 8.4 million viewers, best since 2015
TheWrap’s Loree Seitz reports the 2026 VMAs pulled 8.43 million viewers across CBS and MTV, up 51% from 2025’s 5.6 million, marking the best same-day audience since 2015’s 12.73 million.
Prime Video renews ‘Reacher’ for Season 6, days after Season 4 wraps
Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva reports that Prime Video renewed ‘Reacher’ for Season 6 just 12 days after the Season 4 finale, its second renewal this year, keeping the show on a yearly production cadence.
DoorDash names WPP Media its first global media partner
Marketing Dive’s Peter Adams reports that DoorDash named WPP Media its first global media agency partner after a competitive review, expanding an eight-year relationship into more than 40 additional markets starting next year.
Maybe You’re Gonna be the One that Saves Me: Disney sets Oct. 9 streaming date for Oasis reunion documentary
Deadline’s Max Goldbart reports that Disney+ and Hulu will premiere “Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger” on October 9, following a theatrical run that made it the UK’s highest-grossing documentary of 2026.
80% Digital: Traditional media’s ad-spend share slips below 20% for first time
MediaPost’s Joe Mandese reports that Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker found August ad spending grew a tepid 0.7% year over year, with digital’s share topping 80% while traditional media’s share fell below 20%, an index first.
IAB finalizes new standard for classifying video ads across CTV, social, retail
IAB is reporting that it finalized a new standard classifying video ad environments by consumer viewing experience and operational signals, following a public comment period, covering CTV, online video, social, retail media and video podcasts.
Watch this space: Evan Shapiro shows how kids content economics are collapsing, but fixes exists
Media War & Peace’s Evan Shapiro revisits his Kids Content Landscape Analysis with Common Sense Media, arguing traditional ad and subscription models for children’s programming have collapsed as YouTube monetization declines and streamers pull back on original kids IP.
Upfluence goes fully agentic with AI system Jaice for creator deals
AdExchanger’s Joanna Gerber reports that Upfluence has shifted to a fully agentic model powered by its Jaice system, which now handles the entire creator partnership process for brands, from writing briefs to contacting creators and negotiating rates.
Netflix extends Sesame Street deal through season 62, orders Gabby’s Dollhouse spin-off
C21Media reports that Netflix has extended its Sesame Street deal with Sesame Workshop through season 62 and greenlit a Gabby’s Dollhouse spin-off plus a new preschool series.
Netflix expands ads to 9 more European countries starting March 2027
The Media Leader FR reports that Netflix will launch its ad tier in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland from March 1, 2027, reaching roughly 113 million more people.
Everyone is an ad network now: McDonald’s launches $1bn retail media arm
ExchangeWire’s Sheila Obeng-King reports that McDonald’s has unveiled McDonald’s Media Network, a new advertising venture targeting $1 billion in revenue.
Retail media’s measurement win is squeezing out brand spend, MediaPost argues
MediaPost’s Jessica Haley argues that as Amazon and Walmart perfect bottom-funnel measurement, defensive search spend becomes a fixed cost that absorbs brand-building budget, leaving price and promotion as the only levers when competitors bid on identical keywords.
Shorts Still Fall Short: Tubular data: 1-2 minute videos are the social sweet spot
The Measure’s Jon Lafayette reports that Tubular Labs’ new benchmark finds one-to-two-minute videos more than doubled their share of views to 14.5%, while videos over 20 minutes fell to 15.5% from 22.6%.