Commentary

Gen Z Dominates Consumer Share of All LLM, Especially ChatGPT

• by Joe Mandese , 5 hours ago

While ChatGPT has the most dominant overall share of the LLM's (large language models) consumer marketplace, there are some notable generational splits, according to a just-released study released today by Publicis' Epsilon unit.

The study, published in Epsilon's "The Consumer State Of AI" report, shows OpenAI's ChatGPT indexes even higher among younger cohorts, followed by Google's Gemini and Assistant.

The finding is significant, because younger cohorts -- especially Gen Z -- also are the LLMs earliest adopters in terms of incorporating AI models into their lives, as well as integrating it into their media devices and platforms (see below).

"Nearly 80% of Gen Z accesses AI tools on their smartphones (laptops come in second place)," the report notes, adding, "Their top reasons for using AI include entertainment and fun, general inquiries, educational needs, health, work productivity and shopping. Gen Z also uses AI for fitness more than any other generation. When shopping, Gen Z turns to AI for product information, price comparisons, research and looking for deals and discounts. While they’re more likely to have a positive view of AI than older consumers, Gen Z is concerned about AI’s environmental impact more than any other generation."

 

Commentary

Two Screens of Content - At the Same Time? YouTube Is One

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 7 hours ago

Multitasking is taking on a new behavior iteration for some in this modern media world.

When we imagine what multitasking has been like, we may be thinking of watching a big TV screen (or laptop) when holding phones and scrolling through social media, or texts, or emails.

But digging deeper, multitasking is taking on a different look -- especially for young consumers -- that is watching two video screens at the same time, watching different types of video content. YouTube being on one of those screens.

According to new analysis from Precisify, young consumers -- millennials and Gen Zers -- are now more likely to be found watching YouTube while also watching TV/CTV content.

Are they watching on two big TV screens? Possibly. But more likely is that they are watching TV-like content -- not exactly long-form video (YouTube Shorts, for instance) on a phone and perhaps a connected TV (CTV) show or content on a laptop.

This could be YouTube on one screen and Netflix, Peacock or ABC on the others.

Precisify believes this continues to evolve, with Gen Z and millennials now “radical multitaskers” which could be a difficult situation for media planners and buyers.

The bottom line is that, according to analysis, they are effectively creating more media hours in their day by using two screens at the same time. This seems unheard of in a world where it is presumed that media usage has its limits.

At this point, the rising usage of the word “attention" comes into focus (so to speak). That word has been of growing importance to brand messaging, and of course to program content.

Specifically, YouTube is the center of discussion here -- given its scale and reach and more importantly where 43% of Gen Z-ers and 50% millennials report second-screening of YouTube will watch television.

Creator content has been a major area of growth, but is now less fragmented.

Sixty-five percent of millennials turn to YouTube for creator content, compared to 37% to TikTok and 32% on Facebook.

Gen Z is more consistent -- YouTube (66%)), TikTok (57%) and Instagram (48%).

But overall, YouTube is one of the biggest in terms of scale. This comes as increasingly more watching of YouTube content is on a big TV screen.

Does that mean more attention for brands -- even as the eyes of two key and growing audience groups shift back and forth to another screen?

 

NFL Draft Coverage: Rising Viewers, Brand Interest

• by Wayne Friedman , 7 hours ago

Building on its growing NFL game viewership, the three-day coverage of the NFL Draft -- which started last night (April 23) -- keeps growing, now well past 12 million viewership levels on the opening day over the past two years.

Advertising revenue for the NFL draft programming is also climbing.

Analysts expect at least 15% or more national TV advertising revenues on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, NFL Network this year -- topping the $164.1 million pulled in a year ago, according to estimates from iSpot.

In 2025, national TV ad revenues were up 23% from $133.5 million the year before.

Looking at ad revenues by network, last year ABC pulled in $77.6 million in ad revenue from the three-day run, with ESPN at $41.8 million, NFL Network at $30.6 million and ESPN2 at $14.0 million.

Major advertisers included Goodyear, Nationwide Insurance, NFL, Courtyard, and Dr Pepper.

This year more than half the advertisers in 53 categories have raised media budgets from a year ago, according to a report in Sports Business Journal. Walt Disney’s ABC/ESPN has around 135 total sponsorships from 30 advertisers.

Representatives of ABC/ESPN didn’t respond to Television News Daily by press time.

A total of 14 hours will air for the NFL draft - in primetime and daytime -- Thursday (primetime), Friday (primetime) and Saturday (daytime).

Last year first round primetime coverage of the NFL draft on Thursday -- on ESPN, ABC, and NFL Network -- averaged a Nielsen-measured 13.9 million. This was up from 12.1 million in 2024.

By way of comparison, the NFL 2025-2026 regular season live games across all networks and platforms was 18.7 million.

Looking at total viewership -- all daypart from all four networks (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, NFL Network) -- viewership averaged 7.5 million viewers -- 27% more than 2024.

 

Apple Focuses On 'Hardware': Thinking Big Screens?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 22, 2026

Will John Ternus, the incoming CEO of Apple, take a swing at another piece of major consumer hardware once he takes full control of the big tech giant?

With Apple’s longtime chief executive Tim Cook leaving after 15 years, Apple needs to work on its next act.

Ternus started at Apple in 2001 and was named vice president of hardware engineering in 2013.

For Apple, many believe the obvious will be in building up more artificial intelligence (AI) -- especially "generative AI."

Investors remain nervous that Apple is somewhat behind other technology and media-centric companies such as Google, Microsoft and Meta in this area. Apple has been cautious about taking a privacy-first approach to AI, which has slowed things.

Apple Intelligence is already the foundational AI system integrated into the Apple core operating systems on all devices. This comes with future versions of Siri and also partners with Google for Gemini for more advanced AI tasks.

Apple is already looking at the next step -- not just with fully enabled AI in iPhones, but other physical products where AI will show off its use.

There may be challenges ahead with Apple's attempts at new devices. Its Apple Vision Pro, priced at a hefty $3,499, is out of reach for many consumers. The company is also working on a cheaper headset that is tentatively set to launch this year, called Vision Air.

But should Apple consider something a bit more accessible -- like the next iteration of a smart TV device? Amazon and Roku are already in the game, with the TV set-named brands and/or partnerships, which helps those companies feed into their respective advertising-selling platforms.

This is not Apple’s game at the moment. For example, its Apple TV streaming platform is the lone major premium streaming service that does not have an advertising option.

But imagine if Apple were to come up with the first modestly priced AI-powered smart TV set -- eliminating the need for a set-top streaming box. Apple has been selling those for quite some time.

Some may believe a TV set is now not very important, as mobile devices, laptop screens and iPads could be all that is needed for the modern consumer.

For many years, in addition to the iPhone, Apple's main efforts have been centered around “services” -- Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV+ (now Apple TV) -- as well as payment services such as Apple Pay and Apple Card.

The future focus is on Apple Intelligence, which is intended to power a wide range of features, from writing and editing to image generation and a sharper focus with context-aware Siri.
This is especially true for new types of devices that Apple will launch in the coming years.

So does it make sense that the company did not look to promote services, software, operations, or marketing-centric Apple senior executives?

Going with Ternus as the new CEO signals to analysts that the company is going back “product-first, engineering-led leadership” style.

Think of what Apple products are needed. Apple is going hard in hardware.

 

Is It Time For A Multimodal Media Rep?

• by Joe Mandese , Yesterday

One of the greatest epiphanies for the multimodal nature of modern ad-supported media hit me a few years ago when Brian Wieser was still at GroupM -- and GroupM was still called GroupM -- and he and Kate Scott-Dawkins posted one of their "This Week, Next Week" podcasts (embedded below) discussing how much the "line items" they used in their bottoms-up approach to calculating the advertising marketplace had become fungible. Specifically, they discussed how a medium known for one modality -- say video -- could also be categorized as another, say audio.

The example they gave was YouTube, which we all know is the biggest video platform in the world, but according to Wieser, it had also become the biggest audio platform in the world. At least in terms of audio licensing, if not in advertising sales.

I was thinking about that when Google announced an advertising sales representation agreement Wednesday making SiriusXM Media the exclusive audio advertising rep for YouTube.

So I asked SiriusXM Media's press contacts if they could put some dimensions around the scale of the deal from an ad sales point-of-view. They declined.

And since this trade reporter's nature abhors a vacuum, I asked "someone" at Google -- Gemini AI -- to help me guesstimate it, based on the best publicly available data from its publicly-traded parent, as well as other public industry sources.

"While YouTube is the giant of video, it is a 'challenger' in the pure audio space compared to Spotify or iHeartRadio," Gemini replied, noting that much of YouTube audio content is actually "background listening," albeit "massive."

Utilizing Google's full-year 2025 reported data for YouTube gross advertising revenue ($40.4 billion) and applying industry audio share "norms" from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and other public sources, Gemini estimates audio's share of total YouTube advertising buys is about 3.3%, or about $1.4 billion for that year.

While that's not exactly chopped liver, it is a marginal share of the $40 billion-plus audio advertising marketplace.

So it makes sense that Google would seek to outsource it to a dedicated audio sales organization like SiriusXM Media, which also reps its own audio media inventory -- including the ad-supported Pandora streaming service, as well as an expansive podcast network -- and other third-party audio inventory from companies like SoundCloud and AudioMack.

What happens to an ad and the company in the minds of the consumer when frequency outdoes itself?

Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

 

Commentary

Omnicom Launches Frequency Probe, Finds 'Negative Reach'

• by Joe Mandese , April 20, 2026

As part of a longer-term research project to understand what constitutes optimum ad frequency in today's multimedia, multimodal world, Omnicom's OM Intelligence unit this morning published the first in a series of reports finding that excessive frequency actually produces "negative reach," a phenomenon that happens "when a consumer has seen your ad so many times that it become egregious, beginning to create negative brand recognition."

The report, "Why Frequency Matters," also finds that there no longer are industry rules of thumb for determining when ad frequency generates positive or negative reach, and that it all comes down to the nature of the campaign, the consumer and the media environment, as well as the creative rotation.

Or, as Chief Intelligence Officer Joanna O'Connell puts it, "it depends."

In a preview of the report's findings, O'Connell said the initial study combined a proprietary consumer research study fielded by OM Intelligence in August 2025, as well as some quantitative research utilizing VideoAmp's ACR data, and programmatic bid stream data from The Trade Desk.

The main initial takeaway is that "negative reach" can occur among some viewers with just two ad exposures of the same ad, but that it occurs among nearly two-thirds of viewers when it approaches frequencies of 4+.

Not surprisingly, the study also found that consumers perceive "negative reach" levels most when seeing excessive ad frequency on streaming platforms, as well as social media platforms -- but interestingly have much more positive reach perceptions when seeing ad frequencies on linear TV, websites and retail sites (see data below).

 Advertising local brands is important to keep the reach of a business's brand in the top of the consumer's mind for who they are and what they sell. But today is all about a local company or brand being trusted and its relevance to the consumer and the community. Sure...capturing the largest consumer group that best matches and reaches the largest business's consumer base with its service or product line(s) is important. But today consumer choice depends on trusting a local business's message in terms of what value it may provide to the consumer's personal, or local businesses' needs is most important. With the advent of AI....remember, "artificial intelligence"...is just that! It's not just what a business is all about and what it sells...its where it fits in the consumer's minds in term of trust. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

In a fragmented landscape defined by choice, attention can get you seen, but trust is earned through relevance and consistency. Media planners must prioritize where audiences seek credibility, not just where impressions are easiest to buy. The brands that understand this won’t just reach their audiences; they’ll be the ones those audiences choose.

 

Commentary

Media Fragmentation Is Forcing Marketers to Follow Trust, Not Reach

• by Patrick Fenton , Yesterday

Bookmarks? Favorites? What are those?! Navigating the attention economy is more challenging than ever, and it’s only getting worse.

Research shows that digital media consumption has reached saturation point, with B2B buyers curating their own information ecosystems rather than relying on legacy publishers. Niche platforms, community forums, user-generated content, and AI-powered discovery tools are increasingly the starting point for research.

For media planners, this creates both complexity and opportunity. While reach is more dispersed, attention is deeper and less cluttered. Brands that diversify their channel mix can earn trust through relevance and utility, rather than relying solely on brand recognition. But how can they do this effectively?

Turning complexity into opportunity

Scale without trust is no longer an effective media strategy. Get back to what you can believe in: data and well-sourced editorial.

Let’s start with data. Even though there are more destinations, with people consuming media from more content creators, there’s luckily an equal growth in the volume of information available. Initial research should start here, as it paints a picture of who your audience is. Remember, even “decision makers” (whatever those are) are real people, too! This is a solid foundation to understand what sets your target audience apart, and what platforms they prefer for research purposes.

Once you’ve identified the watering holes where they converse, the “lean-back” environments they’re engaged in, and the high-quality publishing they prefer, it’s not enough to just put your ads there. Tailoring the way you communicate, the types of programs you partner on, and how you stand out are vital. Having campaign strategy and creative in lockstep with media will power this process.

Implementing the right data source depends on what type of campaign you’re running (awareness, ABM, demand, or brand gen) but is at least more straightforward than it used to be. By marrying data, platform, and inventory, you’re well on your way back to the basics of reach and frequency and providing the trigger needed for impactful response.

Now, for those all-important premium publisher and content alignments – where to start?! A lot of research needs to be done, outside of standard reach and composition figures against your target audience -- even more so in today’s hyper-political and socially charged landscape. What stances are being made, and does that align with your brand?

The question of budget then comes into play. With consumption so fragmented, and decision-making units so large, do you have enough to make an impactful investment with enough publishers or platforms? Often the answer is no, but an audience first approach can save the day. With this approach you can still cherry-pick the type of content you’re adjacent to, really home in on frequency, and cover all media types you have available creative for, efficiently.

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