retail

Millennial Parents Set To Push Easter Spending To New Record

• by Sarah Mahoney , Yesterday

 

 

Economic concerns may be top of mind for many American families, but don't tell the Easter Bunny. Two new reports indicate that this spring, people are in the mood to shop, from new outfits for the kids for Easter and Passover, gifts, entertaining and travel.

The National Retail Federation says it expects Easter spending to reach a record $24.9 billion, passing the 2023 record of $24 billion. On a per-person basis, it anticipates $196, also a record, up from the previous record of $192 in 2023.

"While economic uncertainty remains on the minds of many, consumers are still focused on holiday celebrations like Easter," NRF chief economist and executive director of research Mark Mathews said in the announcement.

In its survey of more than 7,800 consumers, 80% plan to celebrate Easter this year.

While candy is a given, purchased by 92%, spending on clothing (with 51% buying some form of apparel) will amount to $3.7 billion. Spending on gifts, chosen by 64%, will top $3.9 billion. Food continues to be the largest category, purchased by 90% of celebrants, with the category expected to generate $7.5 billion in spending. About 56% say they'll cook a holiday meal.

But even those who don't celebrate regard the season as a good time for deals, with 54% of non-celebrants planning to shop Easter-related sales.

Prosper Insights & Analytics conducted the research for the NRF.

Consulting giant PwC also released fresh data on spring holidays, finding that the biggest spenders are millennial parents, who are likely to spend as much as $1,900 celebrating the season — roughly four times more than childless millennials. That includes an average of $500 on travel.

Social media is shaping many of those purchases. Consumers who use social media for spring holiday inspiration spend nearly three times more than those who don't — roughly $1,517 versus $583. For millennials, the gap is even more striking: social media users in that generation spend an average of $2,190, compared to $761 for millennials who don't use social platforms for product discovery. Roughly 50% of Gen Z now say they use social media to learn about spring holiday products or ideas, up from 43% in PwC's most recent winter holiday research, while 44% of millennials do the same, up from 42%.

And the way consumers discover products is shifting in another notable direction: AI-assisted gift and product discovery has roughly doubled since PwC's last holiday survey, rising from about 15% to 30% among Gen Z, and from 16% to 29% among millennials — a signal that agentic commerce is moving from novelty to mainstream faster than many retailers may have anticipated.

 

Federal Pressure On TV News: Hard To Do, But Threats Persist

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Broadcast stations get to renew their individual FCC licenses every eight years.

But taking away licenses? In reality, that is a very difficult task. 

Recently, there have been perceived threats from Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr, with regard to issues over news distortion and hints of license removals.

The problem is in proving any of this. Producing evidence of attempts to falsify the new reports and stories requires whistleblowers, memos, and on-the-record executive with knowledge of efforts telling journalists to deliberately distort news.

But this doesn’t mean the Trump Administration and FCC don't have other means of influence -- such as when it considers approval of business merger deals or other potential agreements.

We have seen this recently as Nexstar Media Group, the largest owner of U.S. TV stations, completed a $6.2 billion deal to buy major TV station owner Tegna. The deal received approval last week from the FCC.

This came despite the FCC's own limitation on U.S. station ownership with a maximum 39% reach of the U.S. TV households. The FCC issued a waiver of that rule for Nexstar-Tegna.

On the flip side, the FCC and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust unit could pressure other deals. 

The Trump Administration, according to many analysts, had favored Paramount Skydance buying Warner Bros. Discovery, but was less favorable toward a Netflix deal to buy WBD.

At the center of this was CNN, owned by WBD. The Trump Administration has been critical of CNN news reports. 

CNN doesn’t need a license to operate. But there are other ways to influence executives as well as other news organizations. 

The Trump Administration sued both the parent companies of ABC News and CBS News for what it perceived as mid-leading reports of “news distortion.” Those suits were settled with $15 million and $16 million settlements respectively.

So while broadcast license removals may not come to pass, there are other tools the Trump Administration may use to influence news organizations.

 

Meta Found Liable For Violating New Mexico Consumer Protection Law

• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

A jury in New Mexico on Tuesday found Meta Platforms liable for violating a state consumer protection law, and ordered the company to pay $375 million in fines.

The verdict, reached after a six-week trial, came in a lawsuit brought in 2023 by state Attorney General Raúl Torrez. He alleged in a sprawling 228-page complaint that the company "knowingly exposes children to the twin dangers of sexual exploitation and mental health harm."

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone tweeted Tuesday evening that the company disagrees with the verdict and will appeal.

"We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content," Stone tweeted. "We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”

Torrez alleged in the original complaint that Facebook and Instagram "are a breeding ground for predators who target children for human trafficking, the distribution of sexual images, grooming, and solicitation."

He added that Meta allows adults to groom underage users by giving adults "unfettered access" to children.

Meta also used design features such as automatically playing videos even though the company supposedly "knew that design features fostered addiction, anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide among teens and preteens," the complaint alleged.

He claimed Meta violated the state's Unfair Practices Act for several reasons, including that it allegedly misrepresented the safety of its apps.

The verdict against Meta came as a jury in Los Angeles continued to deliberate whether Meta and YouTube are liable for injuries suffered by a 20-year-old woman who alleged that she became addicted to social media as a child.

Meta, YouTube, TikTok and other platforms are currently facing numerous complaints in federal and state courts over allegations that they addict young users and then serve them with harmful content.

The tech companies have typically argued that they are protected by the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act -- which provides that web companies aren't responsible for harmful content posted by users -- as well as the First Amendment, which protects companies' ability to publish lawful speech.

Plaintiffs and attorneys general have countered that many of their claims focus on design features such as algorithmic recommendations and automatically playing videos -- not the content itself.

The Supreme Court hasn't yet weighed in on whether Section 230 protects publishers' choices about recommendations to users and other design features, and lower court judge have reached seemingly contradictory rulings.

For instance, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl, who is presiding over the ongoing case involving Meta and YouTube in that city, ruled in 2023 that Section 230 did not immunize tech companies from liability over design features aimed at maximizing the amount of time people spend on social media.

But U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presides over the federal litigation against social platforms, ruled that Section 230 protected the platforms from some claims about allegedly addictive features, but not from claims that the platforms failed to warn users about potential harms.

 Agencies better watch out else their clients may deal with the Trade Desk directly, leaving them out!       

Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Trade Desk Concerns: Does CTV Brand Attraction Have A Strong Foundation?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 6 hours ago

Hidden ad-tech fees for brands and media agencies and their clients? Sounds a major red flag.

But perhaps we are not looking closely enough -- especially when it comes to The Trade Desk (TTD).

The big demand-side platform (DSP) has been dinged over a highly public condemnation by media group Publicis because of a “failed” audit. Now Omnicom is doing an audit on The Trade Desk.

Reports suggest TTD reportedly applied its DSP fees to additional service charges and automatically opted clients into paid tools without explicit consent. The Trade Desk has publicly disputed Publicis' “failed” determination of their business.

The Trade Desk's major focus is its strong access to programmatic connected TV (CTV) inventory.

Brands have long complained that much of the broader CTV industry does not deliver full transparency -- for example, with granular data, where the advertising messaging in specific TV shows airs.

Touting its longtime position as an “open” DSP has helped the Trade Desk pull plenty of brands into the fold.

One veteran media-buying executive believes the concerns of media agencies are more about losing control than those hidden fees.

Media agencies are now more concerned that their clients will look to make deals directly with TTD and leave them out.

In theory, a media agency typically has oversight for its clients over all its media activities -- including ad technology, programmatic and measurement. They also do audits.

What is the bottom line? While the Trade Desk stock has had some significant hits -- it is down 10% over the last 30 days, and 50% over the last six months -- many brands are not heeding the advice of their media agencies. Instead, they are choosing to stay with TTD because of its massive reach in CTV.

CTV is key piece of the puzzle for Trade Desk. Far and away that remains their fastest-growing money media channel for the DSP, representing about 50% of their business.

That is because for many, The Trade Desk continues to be a big standard, favored operating system for the "open" internet when it comes to premium video inventory deal-making.

Brands, even with somewhat perceived higher fees, are likely to place an even higher value on transparency. The Trade Desk continues to have strong premium programmatic inventory deals with Walt Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, among others.

Trade Desk’s "open" identity graph Unified ID -- an alternative to the much-maligned digital media “cookies” -- also is part of the mix.

Telling brands to abandon all that -- in one major pullback -- would be a tough thing to do.

 

Oops... Nielsen Did It Again! Delays Recalibrated Gauge Until September

• by Joe Mandese , March 20, 2026

If you really want to understand the influence streamers now command over Nielsen decision-making, consider this: After delaying a recalibrated version of its monthly Gauge report from this week to next to let it get its act together, Nielsen late today confirmed it will actually delay it until September.

"Well, the streamers whined and Nielsen caved," Fox Sports analytics exec Mike Mulvihill posted on X, after word got out of Nielsen's latest delay tactic.

In his post, Mulvihill attributed the decision to streamer reaction to a Wall Street Journal story reporting that streamers would have flipped places with broadcast/cable share.

Citing unnamed sources, the WSJ reported that the delayed February Gauge (covering January data) would have reported a 41.9% total day TV usage share for streaming vs. a 47.4% combined broadcast and cable share, almost exactly the opposite of what Nielsen's January Gauge (covering December 2025 data) reported for the two viewing sources.

"We will not be making any methodological changes for The February Gauge and will be releasing it in April with the same methodology that we used for January," Nielsen Chief Client Officer Peter Naylor told Variety in an article published late Friday.

All this, while Nielsen continues to struggle to implement multiple sets of adjustments -- not just the integration of new universe estimates (via the Advertising Research Foundation's DASH service) that would have been the basis for recalibrating The Gauge's share estimates, but complex mathematical models designed to make its Big Data + panel sample more representative of actual viewing.

Those adjustments are necessary to providing the "impact data" that will be necessary for buyers and sellers to calculate their share estimates to negotiate upfront deals based on what numbers Nielsen will be reporting in September.

 

Samsung, Amazon Ads Form Shoppable CTV Partnership

• by Wayne Friedman , 4 hours ago

A new Samsung Ads and Amazon Ads partnership will allow consumers to make purchase options directly from their Samsung TV Plus operating systems on their TV screens.

The company says that for Samsung TV Plus -- the operating systems for smart Samsung TV --  this is the first external CTV (connected TV) device partnership to offer this capability with Amazon.

With the deal, consumers can ‘Add to Cart’ products/services directly within their Amazon storefront with a click of their remote and make purchases.

This comes via a deal that will directly link Amazon’s remote-enabled Interactive Video Ad (IVA) technology to Samsung TV Plus.

Starting in July, advertisers will be able to access and activate Samsung TV Plus inventory through Samsung’s partnership with Amazon DSP.

For advertisers who do not sell on Amazon, consumers will be able to access those products via messaging via “Send to Phone” and “Sign Up Today” prompts to extend engagement beyond the TV screen.

Samsung Ads is also expanding its Creative Canvas effort, where brands can update their ad creative for CTV with product galleries, vertical video, and click-to-email.

Samsung TV Plus says it is the leading FAST (free, ad-supported, streaming television) app on Samsung smart TVs, with more than 100 million active users globally each month and streaming hours up 25% year-over-year

Samsung TV Plus is expanding programming with exclusive live events and creator-produced programming.

 

Commentary

The End Was Inevitable for CBS Radio News

• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 8 hours ago

Much is being made in recent days of the nearly 100-year history of CBS Radio News in the wake of the news late last week that CBS is shutting the unit down for good.

But that’s the thing: Radio news as represented by CBS News is history.

News on the radio? It’s like having press releases delivered to a TV columnist by fax machine.

The new powers-that-be who are calling the shots at CBS News -- most notably editor in chief Bari Weiss and the man she reports to, Paramount CEO David Ellison -- have apparently come to the conclusion that CBS Radio has no potential for future growth in a digital world powered by video, not audio. 

To them, CBS Radio is just another vestigial legacy medium in which they have no grounding or sentiment.

Many of the stories that came out over the weekend that reported the end of CBS Radio News were styled in the manner of obituaries. 

Sorrowful observers and veterans of radio news mourned the news like a death. “This is another part of the landscape that has fallen off into the sea. It’s a loss for the country and for the industry,” said one quotable personage.

“It’s another piece of America that is gone,” lamented Dan Rather, 94, when he was reached by an NPR reporter.

Edward R. Murrow and his famous radio broadcasts from London during the blitz were evoked all over the place. 

They deserve their place in the history of broadcast news, but World War II happened a long, long time ago.

The end came suddenly. The news broke on Friday that an announcement had been made internally at CBS that the radio news unit would be shuttered and all employees laid off.

It became effective immediately on Friday. One pictures a newsroom filled with news staff in the morning and by evening, nothing left but someone’s uneaten lunch left in the breakroom fridge.

Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski reportedly delivered the bad news via a companywide memo, evidently choosing not to deliver such bad news in person. Perhaps neither of them knew where the CBS Radio newsroom was.

“Radio is woven into the fabric of CBS News and that’s always going to be part of our history,” said a statement attributed to Weiss, whose own history with CBS News began less than six months ago.

“I want you to know that we did everything we could, including before I joined the company, to try and find a viable solution to sustain the radio operation,” she said, sounding like a surgeon who just lost a patient.

Except for whatever was left of CBS Radio News when it closed last Friday, CBS was for all intents and purposes already out of the radio business, having jettisoned the last of its radio stations in 2017 during the reign of Les Moonves. 

I am willing to bet that members of our younger generations do not really know what a radio is, or a fax machine or a street-corner mailbox. 

They might not recognize real news reporting when they hear it either, but that is something they will have to deal with in their own time, not mine.

The last star of CBS Radio was probably Charles Osgood, who died in 2024 at age 91. He did his own self-styled commentaries -- “The Osgood File” -- on CBS Radio from 1971 to 2017, and hosted “CBS News Sunday Morning” on CBS Television from 1994 to 2016.

Signing off of the TV show every Sunday, he was famous for saying, “Until then, I’ll see you on the radio.”