Before 2026 starts, a breakdown of what's coming...

 

NEXT UP: THE AFFINITY ECONOMY

Before 2026 starts, a breakdown of what's coming...

Evan Shapiro

Dec 16, 2025

∙ Paid

Happy Monday Peaceniks. Are you ready for what’s next?

2026 starts in just two weeks. My new year’s resolution for Media is to force the community, and those who cover it, to finally stop their obsessive navel-gazing and start listening to our audiences.

In 2025, the Media industry wasted so much time, money, and energy looking backward for answers. The perfect case study for this misspent bandwidth is the irrational bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery (Disco Bros) that’s at the center of everyone’s attention as the year ends.

Rather than transforming for what’s ahead, Paramount, Comcast, and Netflix are rabidly competing to overpay for Zaslav’s dying enterprise - while destroying the value of their own companies in the process. Recently, I broke down how little logic there is behind Netflix’s WBD bid and why Nepo Kid Ellison’s escalation makes even less sense (and cents).

Media’s most powerful men are all desperately grasping for the past; for a Hollywood that no longer exists and never will again. We are watching the “best minds of our generation” battling to be the Kings of irrelevancy.

So, why does Media do this to themselves? Because Trad Media consistently ignores the data of its own demise, staring them right in the face.

Examples: Netflix’s viewership has been flat for at least two years. Paramount’s $7 billion payout for UFC can never break even. Comcast is spinning out the traditional cable networks that generate free cash flow, while simultaneously trying to buy two other, very old school Media giants - ITV and WBD - even as their core business, broadband, flatlines. Yet the easily-distracted analysts who cover the industry never ask its leaders the right (or hard) questions. They’re far too busy covering Media’s silly horse races.

The Moguls no longer run our industry. That is why they are spinning out of control. The audiences are now in complete control of their entertainment. That user-centric gravity has created the radical fragmentation that will define Media - in 2026 and forever more. This makes our business much more complicated and difficult than earlier eras and makes our old business models irrelevant.

Above, I’ve posted a full speech I gave recently for The International Emmys - where I spoke actual truth to the powers that be. I strived to offer focus for what’s happening around us right now and point us toward the horizon for where Media is going. The presentation is packed with data that represents our audiences, not our C-Suites, and shows real-world examples of the transformation the industry must embrace if its going to meet the moment that 2026 will be.

Radical transformation is possible. I promise. The case studies above prove it. However, the key to our successful evolution is to put away the childish bullshit of our past and start listening to our audiences. If we follow them, they will lead us to the future.

If you dig the video and want the slides that go with it, below my sign off, you’ll find a link for a downloadable PDF of all the slides I presented.

Happy Festivus for The Rest of Us!

 

Commentary

Losing 2026 Before It Starts: The Real Cost of a Wait and See Marketing Budget

• by Sarah VanHeirseele , Op-Ed Contributor, 5 hours ago

This isn’t a typical year-end budget delay.

For companies on a calendar-year fiscal, budgets are typically directionally set by October, adjusted in November, and finalized before Thanksgiving.

This year, many brands entered December with no clarity, no commitment, and no confidence in what comes next. More concerning, some are now heading into January in the same position.

Scopes are “verbally approved,” but nothing is signed. Plans exist in theory, but not in practice. Teams are told to be ready yet given no authority to move.

What’s different isn’t the economy. It’s how decisions are being made.

Marketing plans aren’t being debated, they’re being paused. Budgets aren’t being cut, they’re being held hostage to new product launches, M&A possibilities, board optics, and a growing fear of being wrong at the wrong time. The result is a new kind of paralysis. Brands technically have money, but no permission to use it.

And while leadership waits for certainty, the market keeps moving.

Decline begins long before the shelf.

Decline begins in memory. This is why mental availability, not short-term efficiency, becomes the real battleground when budgets stall. Most of any brand’s consumers are light and infrequent buyers, and they forget fast. They reach for the brand that comes to mind now because they’re seeing it.

On average, brands lose roughly 10 percent of market share in the first year without advertising, 20 percent by the second year, and close to 30 percent by the third, according to multiple Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and Journal of Advertising Research studies.

Earlier this fall, we interviewed a cross-section of adult U.S. consumers and found 78% trust advertised brands more, while 54% forget brands that stop advertising. And in a controlled test, a single ad for a mid-tier cheese brand increased purchase intent by 43%.

There is nothing conservative about underinvesting.

Right now, media inflation has cooled and competitive noise has softened in many categories. This creates a rare moment where every dollar buys atypical reach and share of voice. Move now and you can gain ground. Wait and you’ll likely reenter a louder and more expensive marketplace with a smaller brand.

Budgeting approaches that feel responsible, such as percent of sales, competitive parity, or repeating last year’s spend, systematically underestimate what growth requires. They anchor decisions to habit and benchmarks rather than evidence.

Instead, base budgets on where your brand’s true response curve sits, and what the marginal return of the next incremental dollar is. To get those answers, bypass your benchmarks or dashboards and model spend against business outcomes over time, isolating how incremental dollars perform as investment scales.

If your budget is frozen or shrinking, here is how to respond.

This is not the moment to wait for clarity. It is the moment to walk into the C-suite with a clear, defensible plan grounded in evidence, not instinct.

Protect continuity above everything else. 

Even lean, continuous advertising outperforms stop-start strategies because mental availability erodes faster than sales data reveals. Once memory decays, recovery costs rise sharply.

Frame marketing as risk mitigation, not upside. 

Advertising is not just a growth lever. It is a risk-reduction tool. Sustained investment lowers price sensitivity, protects margin, and reduces the long-term cost of rebuilding demand. Cutting marketing may improve short-term optics, but it increases downside exposure and future capital requirements.

Concentrate where it counts. 

Underfunded media does not scale down gracefully. It collapses. When weekly reach drops below a critical threshold, brands stop reaching light buyers and begin advertising to the same people more often. If reductions are unavoidable, prioritize channels, assets, and moments that deliver real weekly reach and reinforce memory, not superficial efficiency.

Bring modeling, not anecdotes. 

Finance does not need belief. They need scenarios. Show what happens if spend is cut, held, or increased. Quantify the marginal return of incremental dollars, the cost of delay, and the upside of winning.

The most effective teams go further, modeling what earning even one additional share point would mean in revenue, margin, and long-term brand value. The goal is not to defend marketing. It is to make the tradeoffs visible, the risks explicit, and the growth opportunity concrete.

 

A Brief History Of Broadcast Time (Spent)

• by Joe Mandese , 6 hours ago

It has been a little over four years since Nielsen rebooted the way it calculates share of viewing vis a vis the graphic delineation of its monthly "The Gauge" newsletter, and despite that brief history, it is touting the one released this morning as being "historic."

Specifically, it marks sports programming's share of total broadcast viewing as reaching an all-time high in November: 37%.

What makes that stat truly remarkable is that calculated on a duration basis, sports programming accounts for only 3% of all the content broadcast during the month.

While broadcast's share of total viewing has long taken a backseat to streaming in Nielsen's four-year-old aggregate view, it did manage to build on some recent momentum, boosting total viewing by 7% vs. October thanks largely to -- you guessed it -- sports programming.

"Broadcast gains were driven overwhelmingly by a 30% monthly increase in sports viewing, powered by the back-half of the MLB World Series on Fox, plus NFL and college football on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC," Nielsen explains in this morning's release.

 

Why Cheap Media Is Costing Us More Than We Think

• by Joshua Lowcock , December 12, 2025

Digital advertising has become the fast food of marketing: cheap, convenient, scalable and engineered for short-term satisfaction, but ultimately low in nutritional value. And in a world of  autoplaying videos, reaction triggers and animated banners, most digital media doesn’t hold enough value to stand out — it’s as disposable as junk food.

Moreover, marketers are becoming increasingly disconnected from the process. We use algorithms that optimize for clicks, not connection, and when impressions and CPMs barely register as a rounding error on a budget spreadsheet, it’s easy to forget that behind each one is a real person.

The truth is, you can’t optimize your way to meaning.

Attention is not a commodity

Marketers say we want meaningful engagement, but in our relentless pursuit of efficiency, we’ve let programmatic algorithms prioritize cheap impressions over real connections to the point that we’ve forgotten there’s a person on the other side.

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And principal-based media is making things worse. With the promise of “low-cost media,” “cheaper agency fees,” and effortless automation, it’s easy to become hooked on convenience. This approach sacrifices significance for scale at the risk of turning our budgets into self-perpetuating systems that favor empty reach over emotional resonance.

Attention is precious. With so many ads clogging up their screens, over half of consumers intentionally avoid them through adblocking software or ad-free subscriptions. It takes real effort to earn a person’s attention and more to earn their business, but the cost is worth it.

Faulty systems cost more than money

When media is bought purely on price, it often lands in places no brand would knowingly choose: content farms, piracy sites and misinformation peddlers, or worse — reports from the New York Times and CBS News about ads appearing beside racist videos are just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s usually not bad faith, just bad math. Advertising is exploitable when it’s cheap and paid less attention. Campaigns measured by volume allow bots to slip through the cracks. Fraudulent traffic can generate clicks and impressions that never involve a real person. Ironic that automating efficiency inadvertently pours resources into nonexistent audiences.

Malicious or not, the result remains: Dollars meant to build brands subsidize the disappearance of quality media content. Newsrooms are shuttered, investigative reporting is underfunded and public trust erodes. The very infrastructure of an informed society is undermined by numbers in a spreadsheet.

You can’t optimize on a broken system.

There’s no easy fix for a systemic problem, and optimization isn’t the answer. It’s time to demand better, to rethink media from the ground up. End the conflicts in the system, from principal-based trading to incentivizing bad actors from an over-dependence on “cheap” inventory. You can run a smart, efficient marketing machine at scale without sacrifice.

Marketing that connects and resonates is what really matters. It’s not just a math problem; it’s a human one.

If we end the desperate chase for cheap, we can escape from the world of disposable marketing, and get back to the fundamentals of successful media where the rarest thing you can offer is something worth remembering.

 Thinking how those who are on social media more than they are with their real friends, colleagues or family members, the real loneliness factor growing for those who have little time to get off their phones

Here's an article about Generation Z and Gen Alpha consumers today who are craving real experiences not found on their phone!  Now...lets understand that Generation Alpha are the youngest consumer group who may be dependent on their parents as consumers as those born more closely to now, are not yet int eh marketplace...as you can see by the dates born I have provide, preceding the articel: Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D. 

Generation Z generally includes those born between the mid-to-late 1990s (around 1997) and the early 2010s (around 2012), while Generation Alpha starts in the early 2010s (around 2010 or 2012) and continues until the mid-2020s (around 2024 or 2025), with specific start/end years varying slightly by source. Gen Z are the older siblings, raised with early social media, while Gen Alpha are the first truly digital-native generation, born entirely in the 21st century, shaped by AI and smart devices. 

• Key Defining Factor: Born entirely in the 21st century, after the launch of the iPad and Instagram. 

Commentary

Your Shoppers Don't Want Content -- They Want Connection

• by Brad Godwin , Yesterday

Technology was supposed to make life easier—and in many ways, it has. But what about the repercussions from the infusion of technology into every aspect of our daily lives?

While our lives have gotten “easier,” we’ve started to lose sight of authenticity and vulnerability, presence and connection. It’s getting harder and harder to be fully present when we’re rarely without a smartphone in hand, and so many moments are photographed instead of truly lived.

As the rise of technology and AI continues, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are craving human experiences. The question now is: How do we bring humanity back into technology and marketing?

Though social media promises connection, it often delivers isolation, sending users into a spiral of screentime and vanity metrics. A recent study suggests the negative impacts of online activities like doom-scrolling, with 61% of Gen Z respondents saying they are lonelier today than they were 10 years ago. Even though theoretically, we have 24/7 access to other people, this doesn’t always feel the way it should, and it’s easy to get lost in comparison.

Today, younger generations are craving the analog in an attempt to escape that spiral. The recent resurgence of disposable cameras, vinyl records, and even flip phones is all evidence of the desire for something tangible.

But how does all this relate to brands? Well, we marketers and brands contributed to this rapid growth and emphasis on the digital; maybe we can be the ones to help recalibrate it.

There’s an opportunity emerging in 2026 to reshape the way consumers experience brands, and to make that experience even more human, and build real, authentic relationships with shoppers. Because if younger shoppers are craving what’s real and physical, they’re going to want the brands they buy from to reflect those qualities as well.

The goal isn’t to abandon technology, but to use it with vision, intention, and means. That means defining a purpose beyond just clicks, creating with empathy rather than algorithms, and building real experiences that connect people offline and online.

To start, we can focus on bringing back a renewed emphasis on brand stories and anchoring those brand stories in true purpose. What would it look like to approach our marketing with a perspective that centered questions like who are we creating this for, and what do we want it to do? There’s a chance to move away from simply creating content to fill up a feed or please an algorithm, and instead create content that speaks to the true pain points and desires of our audience.

Honest storytelling is resonating with Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences. Fifty nine percent of Gen Z-ers are more likely to support brands that show vulnerability over perfection.The more we can demonstrate that our brands truly understand and empathize with our audience’s pain points, the more successful—and more human—we’ll be.

Additionally, since much of the world exists in a digital space, we’re seeing a re-emergence of curated in-person experiences and physical events. There’s been a noticeable shift away from mass-scale experiences and instead towards experiences that aren’t just curated for Instagram and TikTok, but are built from a desire to actually create something authentic. Brands are seeing success when they bring people face-to-face in real life instead of only on a screen.

I’m not proposing the complete abandonment of technology. I’m simply calling for brands and marketers to remember that behind each click, like, and share is a real person looking to connect with other real people. The more we can remember that, the more successful we’ll be at reaching younger audiences and bringing true authenticity to our marketing.

 Got a local golf shop or sports apparel retailer in your marketplace for golf, tennis etc? Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Commentary

Consumer Trends Sports Marketers Should Jump on in 2026

• by Jon Last , Columnist, 6 hours ago

We all remember learning about marketing’s “four Ps.”  Looking at recent research with sports fans, I found four significant themes for sports marketers looking to hit the ground running in the year ahead.  I call them “the four Es”:

Emotional connection: Is it just me, or does it seem like every article, sales pitch or seminar presentation has the letters AI in it?  I never cease to be simultaneously entertained and disgusted by the incessant pursuit of the next "big thing/easy button.” If we believed everything we heard, we’d just let automation take care of everything. 

At the end of the day, effective marketing is about personal relationships, contextual empathy, and channeling Wayne Gretzky's great line about anticipating where the puck is going next. All that is beyond the capacity of any large language model. 

Sports fans seek connection, and our data shows that nearly half feel “very lonely.” Automation can create back-office efficiencies, but we’re seeing a huge dichotomy between those consumers seeking frictionless high tech and interpersonal high touch.  I see an inevitable bursting of the bubble and those properties and brands that can reconnect with their targets on a more personal level, can win the year ahead.

Experiences: The percentage of sports fans who strongly agree that “It’s important for my life to include a number of unique experiences” is at its highest since August 2023.  Concurrently, we are seeing a 10-point year-over-year uptick in the percentage of fans who believe attending a live sports event is a good value.  Nearly two-thirds plan to allocate more time to leisure activities in 2026 than they did this year. This is particularly important as economic trepidation is growing.

Eagerness:  Two thirds of sports fans strongly agree that their life philosophy is more about living for today than tomorrow.  That’s up +9 points from November 2024. As consumer confidence is muted about the medium to long term, research is showing a certain impetuousness, satisfied by permission to spend on what consumers most covet while they still can.

Entitlement:  It’s not just the younger generations. Data shows that across the board, sports fans and participants see getting what they want as a just reward for enduring difficult times. Couple this with some six in ten who strongly believe that people today are more “in it for themselves” than they were 20 years ago, and a similar percentage who see people today as more selfish than in their parents’ generation. So the ability to provide those rewards is a super power that sports marketers can bestow upon their target market.

 Here's another pre-published research piece that during the government shutdown, businesses that didn't reduce their advertising actually invested more to their advantage: Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Commentary

Why Ad Spending Grew, Not Stalled During Government Shutdown - For Now

• by Joe Mandese , November 25, 2025

As we approach the early December period when some of the big agency holding companies -- well, at least one this year -- update their annual ad-spending forecasts for the year ahead, we can all take some solace in the fact that the U.S. federal government shutdown did not slow the expansion of the advertising marketplace.

According to a new analysis from Guideline, U.S. advertisers spent half again as much during the October 1 - November 12 shutdown as they did during the previous three quarters of 2025.

That said, there undoubtedly may be seasonal or even cyclical reasons for the upward expansion so far this quarter, but at least at this point, it does not look like 2025 is ending on a downward note.

As for the not-too-distant future beyond that, it is still unclear how much of a lag effect the protracted shutdown had on specific advertising categories with the greatest exposure to it.

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“While it is impossible to understand what long-term impact the government shutdown will have on the broader economy, we feel confident that the ad market will begin to show that impact long before the economic data will, especially in the pharma and travel sectors, which will feel more immediate effects," says Guideline Chief Insights & Analytics Officer Sean Wright.

That said, Wright currently is predicting the U.S. ad market will weaken during the first half of 2026 "as consequences of the shutdown begin to make their way through the market." Specifically, related to disruptions in the travel and pharmaceutical categories.

Based on Guideline's analysis of "forward bookings" of media buys, airline ad spending is expected to remain elevated through year-end, but beyond the holidays, it remains uncertain what will happen to airline, rental car and cruise line ad spending as a result of the shutdown.

The impact on pharma is a little more clear, as the shutdown is estimated to have pushed approval for 10 to 20 novel new prescription drugs into 2026, which is expected to see category declines during the first half of the year.

When I asked Wright how the disruption in ad spending compares with previous government shutdowns, he said that's difficult to discern.

"It's hard to say how the longer-term effects will compare," he explained, adding: "One thing that is complicating matters is the additional efforts that were made to furlough or fire existing federal workers. We think that will have a profound impact in the longer term both on the economy and the ad market but it's too early to say how or where."

Meanwhile, stay tuned until mid-December when the holdcos start releasing their new year outlooks.