Paramount settles state antitrust suit, clearing path for Warner Bros. Discovery deal
Paramount reached a settlement with 12 state attorneys general just before an Oct. 1 deadline that would have triggered a $7 million daily “ticking fee.”
T-Series holds YouTube’s global viewership crown for a third straight week
T-Series logged 985.1 million weekly views to stay atop Tubefilter’s Global Top 50, on pace for a month-long reign, while kids’ content fills six of the next seven spots and 37 of the top 50 channels lean on YouTube Shorts.
Ankler hosts live discussion on Paramount’s WBD settlement fallout
Paramount settled with California AG Rob Bonta, state attorneys general and the WGA to clear its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, and The Ankler streamed a live discussion on what David Ellison gave up.
Fashion and beauty creators shouldn’t be typecast
Modern Retail’s Gabriela Barkho reports that at Glossy Pop NYC, veteran creators and athletes described shifting from single-lane influencers into strategic brand partners with input on product and creative.
Cream Skim: Channel 4 makes Nivea-backed branded format for YouTube, not TV
C21Media’s Miquita Oliver reports that Channel 4 has partnered with Nivea’s Black & White deodorant on a branded entertainment format built for its YouTube channel rather than linear TV.
Women athletes lean on creator playbook to close the pay gap
Digiday’s Alyssa Mercante reports that Women’s sports revenue is climbing but individual athlete pay lags, so athletes are building creator businesses to close the gap.
Hey Hoser! YouTube unveils nine-show Canadian creator slate at TIFF
Tubefilter’s Sam Gutelle reports that YouTube announced nine original programs from Canadian creators at a TIFF-adjacent event, spanning sports, food, reality and scripted comedy. Kareem Rahma will also bring Subway Takes north of the border with Subway Takes Toronto, set to premiere in 2027.
Tech brands triple NFL ad share as Starlink debuts on linear
The Measure’s Jon Lafayette reports that iSpot’s Week 1 NFL scoreboard shows tech, AI and cloud brands hit 6.21% share of voice, up from 2.20% a year ago. Starlink, absent from linear TV last season, ranked 27th of 149 brands by impressions.
Podcast industry presses IAB for measurement overhaul as ad spend lags listening
At the IAB’s Podcast Upfront, executives praised rising investment in the channel but warned that ad spend still trails actual consumption. Speakers called for modernized, standardized metrics to close that gap and better reflect podcasting’s growth.
Why time spent no longer equals value in media
Doug Shapiro argues time-spent metrics, long treated as a proxy for value, are breaking down as monetization per hour diverges widely across media, and AI’s cheap content and compression tools will widen the gap further.
DoubleVerify adds conversational AI layer to its measurement platform
ExchangeWire reports that DoubleVerify launched Ask Neura, a natural-language interface built into DV Pinnacle that lets advertisers query fraud, brand suitability, viewability, and attention data instead of relying only on predefined reports.
Commerce media’s incrementality push takes aim at last-click attribution
The Drum reports that at Commerce Media Exchange, brands and platforms argued for moving past conversion credit toward measuring whether advertising actually drove incremental sales. The shift reflects growing distrust of attribution models that reward media already destined to convert.
Chris Paul Dunks with Data, launches NBA analysis series backed by Genius Sports data
Chris Paul’s Ohh Dip!!! Entertainment, with Connor Schell’s Words + Pictures, will produce a 30-to-45 minute digitally native series using Genius Sports’ official NBA data and visualization tech, distributed mainly through Paul’s social channels.
Streamers are rebuilding cable, one FAST channel at a time
The Verge traces how streaming, born to kill cable’s bundle and scheduled grid, is now recreating both through FAST channels, bundled subscriptions, and ad tiers as platforms chase the attention war.
Prediction markets drive sports betting’s TV ad surge
The Measure’s John Cassillo reports that betting brands spent $269.8 million on national linear TV through August 31, up 40% year over year, per iSpot data shared with AdAge.
The Ankler’s Wakeup: ESPN locks up Joe Buck, Roku bulks up bundles
The Ankler’s Sean McNulty reports that ESPN signed Joe Buck to a six-year, $108 million extension that bumps his annual pay from $15 million to $18 million and keeps him on ABC/ESPN’s Super Bowl calls through 2031.
EMarketer: AI disruption is speeding advertisers’ shift to CTV
EMarketer reports that advertisers are flooding into connected TV as linear TV continues its decline, and generative AI tools are accelerating that migration by reshaping planning and buying.
Versant’s playbook: use linear cash flow to buy time for digital pivot
Spun out of Comcast in January 2026, Versant now has freedom to invest its cable cash flow into sports rights, digital platforms and tangential assets like golf-simulator maker Full Swing.
Ankler: insiders skeptical of Ellison’s threat to move studios out of L.A.
The Ankler reports growing chatter that David Ellison could relocate Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio operations out of Los Angeles, but sources inside both companies say they aren’t taking the threat at face value.
Paramount, states near deal with CNN monitor, film-release floor
Reuters’s Jody Godoy reports that Paramount and states seeking to block its $110 billion Warner Bros. deal could settle as soon as this weekend. Terms under discussion include independent content monitoring of CNN and a commitment on the number of theatrical releases per year.