Burger King turns an organic GMM taste test into an official Google-backed campaign
Tubefilter’s Sam Gutelle reports that Burger King spotted Rhett and Link’s unpaid Whopper taste-test segment on Good Mythical Morning and built a formal deal around it.
IBC 2026 preview: AI dubbing and FAST bloat top the fragmentation agenda
Ahead of IBC 2026, TVREV’s Alan Wolk argues Europe’s 42-language market makes fragmentation worse than in the US, pushing AI dubbing that preserves an actor’s original voice and accent to the top of the agenda.
Walgreens relaunches in-store screens via Looma after Cooler Screens debacle
Modern Retail’s Mitchell Parton reports that Walgreens will add Looma digital screens and end caps to 1,200 stores starting in October, placing content beside products rather than blocking them, following its costly Cooler Screens fallout.
Advertising Week names Dhar Mann chief creator officer, targets $100m in deals
The Drum reports that Advertising Week New York appointed Dhar Mann as its first chief creator officer to curate a four-day program built around a “$100 Million Creator Challenge.”
Creators move from talent to strategy in brand and agency deals
Ad Age’s Gillian Follett details how creators now take equity stakes, join agency creative teams, and sit on advisory boards shaping campaign strategy.
FAST’s data gap is a measurement problem, not a fraud problem
AdExchanger’s AdExchanger Guest reports that an AdExchanger opinion piece argues FAST viewing is real and growing, but platforms withhold audience data from channel operators and buyers. Revenue per viewing hour has fallen from 18 cents to eight cents as CPMs near single digits.
Molson Coors overhauls creator workflow, says engagement quadrupled
Digiday’s Alyssa Mercante reports that Molson Coors is replacing its TV-style approval process with faster, looser creator briefs, working with agency Movers+Shakers since March. The company says engagement with creator content has quadrupled but won’t share commercial results.
Former Hard Fork hosts in talks for seven-figure podcast deal
Bloomberg’s Ashley Carman reports that Casey Newton and Kevin Roose, who exited the New York Times’ Hard Fork, are negotiating a new podcast deal worth seven figures, according to Bloomberg’s Soundbite newsletter.
GTA VI preview drove 100,000 Netflix sign-ups in six hours
Advanced Television reports that a six-hour exclusive window for Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look drove more than 100,000 US Netflix sign-ups on August 27th, per Ampere Analysis.
World Cup and streaming push TV usage up in Nielsen’s usually slow July
Nielsen’s July Gauge shows total TV usage rose 2.2% versus a typical summer decline, as the World Cup final and Peacock’s Love Island USA drove streaming to 49.0% of TV and YouTube to a record 14.2%.
Amazon’s Reacher tops streaming chart for fourth straight week
TheWrap reports that Prime Video’s “Reacher” Season 4 held No. 1 on the Samba Weekly Wrap Report for a fourth consecutive week, fending off Netflix’s “The Whisper Man” and HBO Max’s “Lanterns.”
Fintech brands need multi-category reach to win AI answer visibility
NP Digital’s FinTech AI Visibility Index analyzed 68,334 AI-generated answers to 250 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude.
Netflix to publicly report box office grosses for upcoming theatrical slate
Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro reports that Netflix will begin reporting grosses for six upcoming theatrical releases, including Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew and The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth.
NBC drops blended ratings, lets Nielsen measure Peacock streaming
Awful Announcing’s Manny Soloway reports that NBC will have Nielsen measure Peacock streaming for NFL and MLB Wild Card games, replacing its Adobe Analytics-based Total Audience Delivery metric with a single Nielsen number.
CNN’s demo ratings buck August slump as rivals slide
Adweek’s Mark Mwachiro reports that Fox News and MS NOW posted total-viewer and demo declines in August, but CNN grew in the Adults 25-54 demo during primetime and total day. CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip led the network’s demo gains.
New creator agency Everywhere bets on cross-platform, not single-channel, deals
uk.themedialeader.com’s Charli West reports that Everywhere, founded by Andy Goldsmith, Craig Eastwood and Mike Wooller, launched last week as a commercial partner representing creators across YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, newsletters and live events rather than one platform.
YouTube adds guesstimated TV co-viewing metric for creator brand pitches
Tubefilter’s James Hale reports that YouTube launched Views (Co-Viewed), a creator-private metric estimating how many people watch together on one TV screen, so a family of three counts as three viewers.
GumGum turns sports sponsorship exposure into addressable ad audiences
Adweek’s Irina Katsnelson reports that GumGum launched GumGum Sports Media, a suite that uses Relo Metrics to detect when a brand’s sponsorship appears during a live broadcast and VideoAmp’s household viewership data to identify who actually saw it.
Telly opens home screen ads to programmatic buying, pushes for standards
AdExchanger’s Alyssa Boyle reports that Telly, the startup that gives away free smart TVs in exchange for data and ad exposure, is making its second-screen home ads available for programmatic buying via Magnite’s SpringServe, with demand from The Trade Desk and Teads.
Survey: Roku remains the most popular streaming platform
TV Tech’s George Winslow reports that a new survey finds Roku holds its position as the most popular streaming platform among consumers. The finding comes as competition among streaming device and smart TV operating system makers continues to intensify.