July 27, 2026

The Trade Desk's stock rose 21% Thursday morning to $30.32 after reports surfaced that the company is in talks with OpenAI to sell advertising time on ChatGPT. OpenAI began adding ads to the platform in February and is building its own ad-technology operations, according to a report in The Information; this week it announced a partnership with Criteo to bring on new advertisers. ChatGPT reaches approximately 910 million users. About half of Trade Desk's business comes from brands using its automated buying systems for connected TV, and analysts have said Amazon DSP could become a growing competitor to Trade Desk. A deal with OpenAI would dramatically expand Trade Desk's revenue, according to some analysts. Trade Desk did not respond to a request for comment.

TiVo Ads and OpenGlass have launched a partnership that opens programmatic access to TiVo's TV home screen inventory across millions of U.S. households. The deal lets buyers activate ad formats programmatically, covering up to 90% of the screen, plus rich video units and custom-branded end screens. Home screen inventory has mostly served media and entertainment brands; the new access extends to retail, automotive, finance, travel, telecommunications and consumer goods advertisers. Craig Chinn, senior vice president of global advertising sales at TiVo Ads, said the partnership helps brands "connect with audiences earlier, with more impactful formats, incremental reach and greater ease of activation." The inventory runs on TiVo's pay TV operator partnerships and front-of-screen presence, reaching viewers at the moment they turn on the TV and decide what to watch.

iPhone sales rose 22% in Apple's fiscal third quarter, ended June, pushing iPhone revenue to $54.25 billion against a $53.86 billion analyst estimate. Total revenue reached $109.42 billion, ahead of the $108.65 billion Wall Street expected, with adjusted earnings per share of $1.91. Apple's services division, which includes advertising, App Store and Apple Music, brought in $30.7 billion, a June-quarter record and 12% growth year over year, though it fell short of the $31.2 billion analysts projected. CFO Kevan Parekh said the company set records "in every category, with June quarter records in advertising, App Store, AppleCare, Apple Music, and Apple TV+." Mac revenue jumped to $10.35 billion, well above the $8.74 billion estimate, while iPad revenue missed at $6.19 billion. Apple now counts more than 2.5 billion active devices and 1.5 billion paid subscriptions. Forward guidance fell short of expectations.

Yospace collected streaming data from 14 OTT rightsholders during France's 2-0 World Cup quarterfinal win over Morocco on July 9 in Foxborough, Massachusetts, and measured a near-10% audience jump during the VAR review before Kylian Mbappe missed a first-half penalty. The spike landed just ahead of a hydration break, the mandatory three-minute pause new to the 2026 World Cup that opens an extra two-minute ad window each half. Viewing figures held steady through a scoreless first-half finish, dipped at halftime, then climbed again once France scored twice within six minutes midway through the second half, producing the match's largest live audience for the second hydration break. Concurrency then fell steadily once the result looked settled, with Morocco unable to respond and France managing the closing stages. The pattern shows scorelines are one of several triggers that move live sports audiences and, with them, ad opportunity.

Twelve state attorneys general reached an agreement with Paramount Global to delay its $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery until a court rules on their antitrust lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín extended a temporary restraining order by 14 days, pushing the earliest possible closing date to Aug. 18. If the judge grants a preliminary injunction sought by the states, the merger could stay frozen until a trial concludes in June 2027. California Attorney General Rob Bonta argues the merger would concentrate too much power in too few companies and raise prices for audiences. Paramount called the agreement a "significant win" that gives it a direct path to a trial based on the evidence. Shares in Paramount Global fell 3.3% on July 24 as the delay raised concerns on Wall Street.

Meta Platforms reported total revenue of $60.8 billion for the second quarter of 2026, up 28% year over year. Operating cash flow reached $31.9 billion, but after $31.1 billion in capital expenditures, free cash flow fell to $784 million, down 91% from $8.5 billion a year earlier. Earnings per share came in at $6.18, below the $7.2 analysts expected, partly due to $2.4 billion in legal charges and $1.2 billion in severance tied to May layoffs of about 8,000 employees. Third-quarter revenue guidance of $61-64 billion also trailed the roughly $63.1 billion consensus. Shares, which closed July 29 at $585, fell almost 10% immediately after the report and were down about 11% by the close of the next session, near $518. Ad impressions rose 14% and average price per ad rose 12%, with Meta crediting AI-driven ranking improvements for gains in clicks and conversions.

AGCOM's latest Communications Observatory report shows Italian TV revenue rising from €8.02 billion in 2021 to €8.93 billion in 2025. Traditional broadcast viewership fell in Q1 2026, with prime-time viewing down 1.4% year-over-year and full-day viewing down 1.6%. Measured against 2024, prime-time audiences dropped by 567,000 viewers (-2.6%) and full-day audiences by 296,000 viewers (-3.2%). Between 2024 and 2026, Cairo Communication/La7 was the only broadcaster to grow full-day audience, up 15.3%, while Rai, Mediaset, Warner Bros Discovery and Comcast/Sky all posted full-day audience declines of between 1.8% and 11.1%. SVoD platforms reached 15.49 million unique visitors in March 2026, up 2.7% year-over-year, led by Netflix at 9.3 million users, up 13.1%.

MediaPost's Research Intelligencer column reports Netflix losing more than 50% of its top-show audience season to season, and proposes linear TV tune-in advertising as the fix. Netflix's own ad inventory is scarce and expensive, and buying spots on rival streaming services or connected TVs carries similarly steep, competitive pricing. eMarketer data cited in the column shows Netflix subscribers watch 2.5 hours of linear TV daily in the U.S., letting data-driven linear platforms reach tens of millions of them each week in cohorts segmented by content, time of day and prior viewing behavior. The column pegs the cost of that targeted linear reach at roughly one-third of comparable streaming or smart-TV rates, measured by cost per converted viewer. Nielsen Gauge data show linear TV still carrying half of all U.S. viewing time and 85% of ad viewing time. Program promotion built for subscription marketing differs from that built to drive episode-to-episode viewing, a skill honed for years at legacy TV networks.

China Mobile Migu became LaLiga's exclusive New Media Partner in Mainland China for four seasons, running from 2026/27 through 2029/30. The two sides signed the agreement at Migu's Beijing headquarters, with LaLiga president Javier Tebas and Migu chairman Shen Wenhai putting pen to paper. Migu will stream all 380 LaLiga matches live each season through a freemium model, alongside highlights, VoD content, short-form clips and Chinese-language localisation of LaLiga's international programming. Tebas linked the deal to the profile boost LaLiga players got at the World Cup and called China a strategic market for the league. Wenhai described the partnership as long-term and mutually beneficial, pointing to plans for improved broadcasting and fan services. The agreement builds on an existing relationship between the two organizations and covers the four seasons through the end of the decade.