| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 Facebook Continues Video Retooling with eSports Deal | | The social media giant on Thursday is expected to announce a deal with ESL, a global organizer of eSports contests, to stream matches, player interviews and other content, The Wall Street Journal reports. It's part of Facebook's effort to offer more high-quality video programming to its nearly 2 billion monthly users. Earlier this year, Facebook signed contracts with five eSports teams to publish live and on-demand video of players practicing or competing in eSports. This new deal will go beyond that. Facebook has in the past been in talks with the NFL and MLB to add live game telecasts and has streamed some Mexican Soccer League matches. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The overall goal of Facebook is to improve the quality of video it offers users on its platform to increase engagement and to bolster better opportunities to sell advertising. For eSports and other videogame content alone, people watched some 9.6 billion hours of live-streamed content of social platforms including YouTube. Facebook also has to keep up with its social platform competitors like Twitter and Yahoo, the latter of which also has done some eSports deals. | | A Take: WSJ | | | | #2 Why Other Broadcasters Passed on 'Idol' Revival | | CBS, NBC and Fox all discussed with the producers of American Idol, FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment, the possibility of reviving once broadcast television mega-hit American Idol, but each passed, allowing ABC to garner the revival rights, Adweek reports. Leslie Moonves, CBS Corp. chairman and CEO said of Idol, "The price is so expensive, you need a 35 share to break even. So that's not going to happen." NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt, said between The Voice and other music competition shows in development, "we just didn't need Idol." And Dana Walden, chairman and CEO of Fox Television Group, which aired Idol for 15 seasons, simply said, "We did not see the fan excitement and enthusiasm for that show to come back that Fremantle did. We just had a different set of facts." ABC's entertainment president Channing Dungey was of a different opinion, taking a poke at Fox for canceling Idol when she described it as "a pop-culture staple that left the air too soon." | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Time will tell, of course, but Fox was certainly justified at the time when it canceled Idol. The show's ratings had deteriorated significantly and there was no longer any buzz around it. It will be interesting to see what kind of pricing levels ABC tries to sell advertising at and what the level of marketer interest will be. And whether it's Dungey or Moonves that's smiling at the end of the upcoming season. | | A Take: Adweek | | | | #3 Facebook's War Against Clickbait | | The social platform is continuing to fine-tune its ability to filter out clickbait stories, as reports by Digiday and USA Today detail. Facebook is further improving its filter mechanisms to try to prevent users from receiving stories that exaggerate headlines in order to get users to open them. Facebook earlier made changes to its algorithm to penalize pages from posting clickbait stories and headlines. Its announcement on Wednesday fine tuned that to target individual posts. The earlier algorithm tweak was aimed at cutting off content farms and disreputable publishers. This new filter can punish so-called "premium publishers." | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The clickbait battle is part of Facebook's bigger commitment to go after and eliminate fake news on the site. According to Pew Research Center, 44% of Americans get news from Facebook, while 75 of adults in an Ipsos Public Affairs survey believe fake news headlines on Facebook. So it is important to take steps to prevent users from even opening those fake news or stories with exaggerated facts. It also obviously creates a better atmosphere for advertisers. | Two Takes: Digiday | USA Today
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| | 84 | | Percentage of U.S. mothers who say they use Facebook, according to a survey by Edison Research. That compares to 47% who use Pinterest, 37% who use Instagram, 29% who use Snapchat and 21% who use Twitter. Snapchat showed the largest increase of mom users between 2016 and 2017, with the percentage of users rising from 13% to 29%. | – Reported by eMarketer
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| | Fox Wins With 'Empire' | by Michael Malone
Fox grabbed ratings honors Wednesday, with an episode of Empire working on its behalf. Fox had a 1.5 rating in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and a 6 share. Empire did a flat 2.1, after Shots Fired scored a flat 0.8. ABC was next at 1.2/5. The Goldbergs grew 8% to a 1.4 and Speechless went up 20% to 1.2, then Modern Family climbed 13% to 1.7 and the premiere of Downward Dog did a 1.1. Designated Survivor had a 1.1 too, up a tenth. NBC had a 1.1/4. The season finale of Blindspot did a flat 0.8, then Law & Order: SVU grew 9% to 1.2 and the season closer of Chicago P.D. climbed 8% to 1.3. CBS did a 1.0/4. Survivor had a flat 1.7 and two hours of Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders did a 0.7, down a tenth of a point from last week. The CW was at 0.4/1, with Arrow at 0.5, down a tenth of a point, and The 100 at a flat 0.3. Among Spanish-language networks, Univision did a 0.6/2 and Telemundo a 0.4/2. | |
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| • LINDSAY PATTISON has been given the additional position of chief transformation officer at WPP's media agency division GroupM. In addition to her duties in the newly created post, Pattison will continue in her role as CEO of GroupM agency Maxus. A MediaPost report says Pattison will oversee GroupM efforts to better work with sibling agencies as part of a "horizontality" strategy. She will also oversee talent and leadership development, culture and diversity within GroupM. She has held the Maxus CEO post since 2014. Prior to that she was global chief strategy officer and UK CEO for Maxus. She has also held executive roles at Y&R, PHD Media and Sony Ericsson.
• LORI SENECAL is leaving her post as global CEO of Crispin Porter + Bogusky at the end of this year. The MDC Partners' agency will be interviewing for a successor. Ad Age reports that when Senecal joined CP+B in 2015, her length of stay was discussed. Senecal previously served as global executive chairman of MDC Partners' agency Kirschenbaum Bond Senecal and prior to that was president and CEO of KBS. Also at CP+B, DANIELLE ALDRICH was promoted to president of the agency's Boulder office and its Los Angeles office. She was previously managing director in Boulder.
• CHRIS ROSS was named chief operating officer of Grey New York, and JANE REISS was appointed chief brand experience officer, both new positions at the agency. Ross will be responsible to the daily operations at the agency, while Reiss will lead the Brand Experience Group. Ross has been with Grey since 2009 and most recently was executive VP and managing director on several brand accounts. Reiss joined Grey in 2013 and was instrumental in the agency's winning of the Hasbro account. • CYNTHIA KUKER was appointed VP, senior creative director, and DANIEL MACENA was named VP, creative director at the Jack Morton New York. Kuker was previously a marketing consultant, while Macena was most recently creative director for McCann HumanCare.
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