Commentary An Agentic Upfront: What About Transparency?

 Agentic AI, or autonomous AI, is a type of artificial intelligence that runs independently to design, execute, and optimize workflows – allowing enterprises to more effectively make decisions and get work done. AI agents can make decisions, plan, and adapt to achieve predefined goals - with little human intervention or completely autonomously. 

Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Commentary

An Agentic Upfront: What About Transparency?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 8 hours ago

What happens when linear TV ad sales become near full-scale programmatic -- and move deeper into agentic AI media planning and buying?

There would be fewer sales personnel for TV stations, networks, and streamers, for sure.

This process has been going on for some time. Over the last ten years, the number of advertising sales positions has plummeted.

And yet marketplaces like the upfront keep going. Top-of-the-funnel value remains at linear TV -- especially for live events -- with sports programming in particular, but also big live events such as "The Oscars" and other award shows.

Consider the idea that in the future an agentic AI agent can offer up micro-parameters that can survey content for new guideposts.

Perhaps the first position in the last two-minute pod of the Super Bowl is best -- but only if it is a close game -- for example, within three points.

Perhaps agents can sense that a viewer has only tuned in to half of the advertising message -- but will offer up the other half at another time.

And even if live TV seems to now be a desirable programming genre for a brand, perhaps an AI agent could detect whether a specific live program -- for example, a live golf event -- is not driving the expected sales.

It could then shift messaging or some of its remaining parts of its budget to a different program -- maybe scripted, or unscripted or onto a CTV platform.

Some analysts might call this "dynamic re-allocation."

Taking this further, imagine the standard commercial break going away. Digital media -- especially YouTube -- is already doing this, to an extent -- mixing up regular-looking commercials with short form QR code messaging and short, display-like interactive advertising content.

And speaking of greater flexibility, fourth-quarter TV network upfront deals could disappear altogether.

For media sellers, all is not lost. Many could adjust their parameters around limited flexibility -- with their own agentic AI selling agents.

So while some platforms might make losses, they could make gains with other brands.

Will buying and selling AI agents really talk with each other... or will they do battle? On the buying side, all that would shrink transaction costs. But at what cost?

The bad news? Some dark, movie-like drama story arcs from futurists may wonder about hundreds of millions of dollars quickly shifting-- with little notice -- to Walt Disney from NBCUniversal.

Transparency? Perhaps those agents will calm some fears and give us a few crumbs to consider.

 

2030 Forecast: Ad-Supported Video Soars 75% To $540B

• by Wayne Friedman , 7 hours ago

Global advertising-supported video -- especially social media-enabled video -- will continue to soar over the next five years, rising 75% to $540 billion by 2030, according to Omdia.

“Social video advertising is becoming the dominant force, reshaping how content is consumed and monetized,” says Maria Rua Aguete, senior research director of Omdia, a research company. “Meanwhile, traditional models such as linear TV and pay TV are in structural decline.”

At the same time, linear TV content supported by advertising will sink 8% to $113 million.

Online video -- social media, connected TV, website and other digital -- will command a 54% share of all global video revenues (versus 40% in 2025) -- including ad-supported, subscriptions and individual transactions.

Omdia projects that total revenues from global video businesses will rise 33% to $1.03 billion in 2030 -- with ad-supported online video at 53%, online video from subscriptions/transactions at 21%, pay TV (subscriptions/transactions) at 15%, and linear TV (advertising) at 11%.

Worldwide-cord cutting of traditional retail video revenue businesses continues to sink, but at a slower rate than gains made by online/digital video -- down 6% to $159 billion.

Sharply rising ad-supported video of all types will also cut into gains from subscription/transaction revenues from online video, growing 24% to $216 billion. That revenue will sink to a 21% share (in 2030) -- down from 22% in 2025.

 

Commentary

How Modern Moms Discover, Trust, And Buy

• by Maria Bailey , Columnist, April 1, 2026

The most effective way to market to moms is through trusted peer influence, real-world validation, and content that supports a longer purchase journey. Data shows that moms rely far more on recommendations from other moms, reviews, and real-life experiences than traditional advertising.

This shift is redefining how brands win with Gen Z moms, millennial mothers, and the grandparents who make up Gen X and boomer moms. Some of the shifts in marketing tactics are being fueled by the emergence of artificial intelligence and AEO search. The discovery phase in a mom’s purchasing journey has shortened and requires brand managers to become AEO specialists.

Who is the modern mom in today’s market?

The modern mom is primarily a millennial woman, most often between ages 35–44, raising two or more children and living in suburban communities. Gen Z moms are emerging as well as the consumer group within the mom market.  They are intentional in the narrative they are writing around motherhood, and they are purposeful in their purchases. As with all moms, time is a scarcity.

The modern mom is:

• Balancing work and home life
• Digitally connected but selective about what she trusts
• Focused on efficiency, value, and emotional reassurance in her purchases

What this really means is, she’s not just a buyer. She is a decision engine for the household and often for her broader network. She buys for herself, her family, and often her business.

What are moms’ biggest daily challenges?

Modern moms are not short on options. They are short on time and often willing to buy products that save time.  Their lack of time creates decision fatigue, so brands who make it easy for them to make a decision often win their business.

The biggest daily pain points include:

• 69% struggle with home organization
• 56% struggle to find time for themselves
• 52% struggle with meal planning
• 52% struggle with time management

These are not just lifestyle insights. They are product positioning opportunities. Brands that win here solve friction, not just sell features. Social media messaging should focus on solutions and solutions-based products.  Moms are not buying features; they are buying convenience and ways to gain peace in their world.

What actually drives moms to buy?

Word-of-mouth is the single most powerful driver of purchase behavior among moms.

• 76% rely on recommendations from friends and family
• 63% are influenced by in-store sampling
• 62% trust online reviews
• 61% respond to discounts and coupons
• Only 8% trust paid ads

Moms don’t want to be marketed to. They want to be reassured. This is why an integrated approach works best for connecting with modern moms. That’s why influencer marketing works when it feels like a recommendation, not a promotion.  Moms want social validation for the research she does online.

Where do moms discover products?

Discovery is split between search, retail, and social. It is so important for brands to have an active AEO program that puts their brands in the conversation as she is searching with AI.

• 78%  of moms use Google to search for products
• 72%  of mothers rely on Amazon reviews
• 81% of moms are active on Facebook
• 78% of mothers are active on Instagram

The most engaging formats for mom consumers:

• Facebook posts
• Instagram Reels

What this really means is, discovery is not happening in one place. It is happening across a layered ecosystem where search, social, and retail all reinforce each other.

Brands who earn mom’s trust have the opportunity to win the loyalty of today’s modern’s mom. 

  A welcome educational piece to share with local-direct clients for their media marketing objectives: Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Commentary

From Ads to Answers, AI Is Rewiring Marketing's Growth Engine

• by Jesse Rosenschein , Op-Ed Contributor, 55 minutes ago

Attention is no longer the gatekeeper.

For two decades, digital marketing has been engineered around one dominant design: the ad unit. Paid search. Pre-roll. Display. We optimized bids, refined audiences, and scaled reach with precision. Marketing became a predictable, capital-efficient growth engine.

That engine still works, but the interface that governs decision-making is changing, and that changes what drives performance. Marketing is shifting from a system optimized to win attention to one optimized to win recommendation. As AI increasingly shapes what consumers see and choose, competitive advantage depends less on distribution scale alone, and more on credibility and eligibility.

The shift is measurable: 53% of consumers are now either experimenting with or regularly using generative AI tools, up from 38% in 2024. Google’s AI Overviews are expanding across commercial queries, and ChatGPT surpassed 100 million weekly active users within a year. The behavioral shift is clear: consumers are moving from browsing options to asking for conclusions.

“What’s the best electric SUV?”

“Which CDP should I implement?”

“What’s the safest sunscreen for my kids?”

These are not keyword queries. They are decision prompts. Instead of scanning links or comparing ads, consumers receive synthesized recommendations. Reviews, expert commentary, sentiment signals, structured data, and historical consistency are aggregated into a conclusion. The consideration set narrows, sometimes to one.

When consideration compresses, distribution scale alone cannot compensate. If your brand is not included in the recommendation layer, you are invisible at the moment of decision.

For executives, this is not a media trend, it is an operating model shift. If growth now depends on being selected, not just seen, marketing must evolve from a campaign engine into a coordinated system designed to earn trust, strengthen signals, and increase selection probability.

The Operating Model of Selection

Performance marketing long depended on a predictable sequence: search, browse, compare, convert. Scale could compensate for weaker brand signals. In the answer era, weak signals reduce eligibility altogether, and marginal position losses now have disproportionate impact.

When consumers ask AI systems “what’s best,” those systems synthesize reviews, authority, sentiment, product attributes, and consistency to produce a shortlist. Analysis from Bain & Company suggests that brands included in recommendation outputs can see conversion efficiency improve 2–3× compared to brands simply present in the category.

Marketing is no longer just reach and frequency; it is the ecosystem of signals that influence recommendation. If the old model was built around distribution efficiency, the new one is shaped by credibility, integration, and measurable trust.

A New Scorecard for the AI Era

A new class of indicators is emerging:

• Recommendation Presence: how often your brand appears in AI-generated answers across high-value prompts

• Citation Visibility: how frequently content, earned media, expert commentary, and reviews are reflected in generative outputs

• Eligibility Signals: a composite index of authority, review quality, sentiment velocity, structured data integrity, and signal consistency

These metrics are increasingly measurable through prompt tracking, AI visibility audits, and sentiment monitoring tools. Over time, they may become leading indicators upstream of CPA and ROAS.

Interconnected Levers

Five interconnected levers form the foundation of this new operating model, each driving the signals and systems that determine whether a brand is recommended in an AI-mediated marketplace.

• Power Source: Authority as Stored Energy – Influencers shape how categories are understood. Signals ripple into search results, Reddit threads, YouTube reviews, and earned media, becoming part of the corpus AI systems retrieve and synthesize. Authority compounds and increases selection probability.

• Traction: UGC and Social Signals as Demand Infrastructure – Review health and community sentiment are structural growth inputs. Social listening is an early-warning radar, while traction amplifies media efficiency.

• Navigation: From Search to Selection – SEO remains foundational, but Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) shift focus from visibility to inclusion in synthesis. The objective is to be recommended.

• Drivetrain: Data Integration Converts Power into Performance – First-party data strategies, CDPs, clean rooms, and interoperable analytics systems ensure media, analytics, product, and CX operate as a coordinated system.

• Dashboard: Measurement When the Click Disappears – Attribution explains transactions; modeling explains contribution. Incrementality testing and advanced MMM illuminate what strengthens eligibility even when clicks vanish.

What This Means for Executive Leadership

Growth will no longer be driven by how efficiently you buy attention alone, but by how consistently you earn recommendation. Competitive advantage will increasingly be defined by credibility density, and the cumulative signals that make a brand trusted and recommendable across AI systems. Investments once labeled “brand” or “upper funnel” are now structural efficiency drivers.

The brands that win will not be the most aggressive bidders; showing up is table stakes. In the answer era, winners will be defined by the strength of their demand infrastructure, building the signals and systems that ensure AI, and the consumers who rely on it, consistently select them. The growth engine is not disappearing. It is being rebuilt in real time.

 

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.”

 

Commentary

Streamers, Brands Reach Far and Wide for Sports Content

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 20, 2026

Content for women's sports leagues -- for example, the WNBA -- and other solid, mid-level sports programming are getting strong drafting from the overall strong interest in live sports TV from advertisers, brands and media channels.

A report from SponsorUnited says that in 2025, women’s sports leagues (including the WNBA, NWSL, WTA and LPGA) had a combined 5,372 deals sponsorship deals -- three-and-a-half times the growth rate of men’s sports leagues and sports programming.

Looking at the combined top two women sports leagues --- basketball’s WNBA and soccer’s NWSL -- total sponsorship spend has soared 33% in 2025 from the year before -- to $195 million.

This comes on the heels of a possible new media rights deals for the NFL, as well as NHL and Major League Baseball -- with higher valuation by team owners due to rising advertising/brand interests.

Looking beyond women’s sports, analysts are focusing on the $7.7 billion, exclusive seven-year deal Paramount Skydance made with UFC, the mixed-martial arts sport.

This caught analysts' interest because it showed a 100% increase from what ESPN made under a previous agreement -- coming to $1.1 billion per year from $550 million per year.

We don’t know the specific details of how UFC is trending currently in terms of advertising revenue. But surveys of consumer research suggest there is strong attraction.

A recent study of sports and streaming from Hub Entertainment Research shows 71% of avid UFC respondents giving thumbs up to the question “Does the new UFC deal with Paramount+ make you more likely to keep your subscription?”. Even casual fans gave it a 44% nod.

From Paramount’s perspective, a change was needed. The former UFC deal was at Disney’s older ESPN+ streaming platform, with a large pay-per-view component. It moved to one at Paramount, where the focus is mostly on streaming subscriptions and Paramount+, with some major events on CBS.

The pull of sports content from all available platforms (broadcast, PPV) to streaming will continue to a large extent. This will include major streaming platforms like Netflix.

Streaming platforms are expected to continue to reach for possible mid-level sports programming for “live” content.

This all points to streamers using sports as the centerpiece of a reinvention of what live broadcast stations and networks have been all about.

 For some time, we have provided clips of new for and about happenings in our business that comes from the best publications available to help us all learn and enjoy updates regarding the progress ahead for the broadcast media marketing business. For a deeper dive, your management may wish to subscribe to each or one of...or perhaps a few of the terrific publications to stay further ahead of the future of our broadcast business. I am happy to share these brief examples of what latest new each publication provides: Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Commentary

Federal Pressure on TV News: Hard to Do, But Threats Persist

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 7 hours ago

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.

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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.

 

The Future of Local Advertising Depends on Convergence, Not Channels

 

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The Future of Local Advertising Depends on Convergence, Not Channels

Mar 17, 2026| Keith Kazerman| 

Locality’s Keith Kazerman: The industry needs an audience-based strategy that reflects how people watch, consume, search and buy in local markets.

As AI reshapes the media landscape, local advertising is facing a moment of opportunity, and a big one. On one hand, geotargeted video, behavioral data and real-time optimization open powerful new possibilities. On the other hand, advertisers face the growing challenge of aligning these capabilities across multiple environments and platforms.  

The problem isn’t a lack of industry innovation; it’s a lack of foundational integration. What is increasingly clear is that integration across identity, planning, activation and measurement will be critical if local campaigns are to operate as seamlessly as audiences consume media.

Understanding The Viewer

Today’s viewers shift seamlessly between platforms. A consumer might watch morning news on broadcast, stream their favorite series on an app and browse clips on mobile, all in a single day. But advertisers trying to reach that viewer must navigate different datasets, vendors and planning tools, each with its own rules, measurement reporting and blind spots.

The result? Many local campaigns are still forced to operate in silos, planned separately, delivered inefficiently and measured unevenly, despite the availability of better data. This creates a missed opportunity. The technological systems supporting local advertising were built for a different era. 

The Case for an Audience-First Infrastructure

To move forward, we need more than incremental tools. It requires a shift in orientation, from channel-based planning to an audience-based strategy that reflects how people watch, consume, search and buy in local markets.

An audience-first framework recognizes that broadcast, streaming, mobile and digital platforms are not competing but interconnected touchpoints within a broader consumer journey. It prioritizes consistent measurement, cross-platform duplication and transparent reporting so that advertisers can understand beyond the number of impressions that were delivered to how they contributed collectively to campaign objectives.

This does not diminish the value of any individual platform. Broadcast continues to deliver scale, trust and deep community engagement in local markets. Streaming and digital environments provide flexibility and targeting precision that enhances relevance. Each plays a distinct and important role within the same audience journey. 

Greater alignment across platforms and measurement standards will allow advertisers to better understand how these environments work together and reflect how people consume media.

Smarter Local Activation

Local media has always delivered deep relevance; it connects with communities in a way national campaigns can’t replicate. But when that value is unlocked through better audience understanding, local advertising becomes even more powerful. 

With more integrated data, advertisers can build more complete strategies using broad linear reach to drive awareness, then tailoring follow-up messages through digital and streaming to drive consumers through the purchase funnel. Regardless of channel, it’s about reaching the right people at the right time with the right message.

This is not simply a matter of coordination. As artificial intelligence and advanced data modeling continue to mature, the industry has an opportunity to improve frequency management, enhance attribution and create clearer visibility into cross-platform performance at the local level.

Laying The Groundwork for What’s Next

The future of local advertising won’t be defined by individual channels. It will be driven by technologies that serve the audience first, regardless of where they are. The entire ecosystem — broadcast, streaming, mobile and digital — is interconnected, requiring a shared data foundation, openness in measurement and alignment across platforms.

Advertisers who rethink how they approach local, starting with the consumer and data that defines their behavior and not just the delivery channel to reach them, will be best positioned to lead. As audience behavior continues to shift across screens, success in local advertising will depend less on channel selection and more on coordination.

When planning and measurement frameworks reflect how people actually consume media, advertisers gain a more complete view of performance. Convergence is an evolution of consumer behavior, and if done right, it will drive greater ROI and stronger long-term growth.  

When local strategies are built around audience behavior and actual consumers, rather than platform distinctions, it’s no longer a question of broadcast or streaming but how to unlock the full potential of both.