May 6th-May 12th // Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. A barrage of Q1 earnings, and it’s upfront season!
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The 2026 upfront: Live sports still reign, but the ad tech pitch is starting to take center stage
Source: Multiple
May 11th-12th, 2026
Summary: It's upfront week. As media companies in New York pitch advertisers on their programming for the coming year, the big themes are live sports, AI-powered targeting and measurement, and industry consolidation. Streaming ad dollars keep growing while cable and broadcast keep shrinking. Here's a quick rundown of some of this week's pitches:
• NBCUniversal expanded its Performance Insights Hub for full-funnel outcomes measurement and launched a new "Live Contextual" tool to align live program content with brand messaging. NBCU is also leaning into Sunday sports (NFL + NBA + MLB) and its 100th anniversary.
• Amazon🔒 hosted a star-studded event anchored by a simple pitch: Amazon touches every part of a consumer's day. Its new Dynamic TV Creative🔒 automatically adjusts Amazon Prime ad messaging based on a viewer's prior brand exposure.
• Disney🔒 put on a massive production anchored around live sports, namely Super Bowl LXI, which will air on ABC in February 2027 for the first time since 2006. It also holds rights for the College Football Playoffs, the Oscars, and the Grammys.
• Fox touted its upcoming World Cup coverage but also took a tech-forward approach with a new contextual engine that analyzes video content in real time to match ads against performance goals. Tubi is now the No. 1 free, ad-supported streamer, with 100M monthly active users.
• Warner Bros. Discovery will hold what is likely to be its last solo upfront before the Paramount acquisition closes. After losing its NBA package last year, WBD is pivoting its pitch to HBO content and unscripted programming.
• Netflix🔒 is pitching advertisers on its content slate, maturing ad tech stack, and growing programmatic capabilities. Ad revenue is set to double again, and programmatic is nearly 50% of its ads business. Live sports and deeper brand integrations round out the offer.
• Roku skipped a formal presentation this year in favor of agency holding company dinners focused on full-funnel outcomes and ~80% CTV household reach via Amazon DSP.
• YouTube🔒 pitched itself as a one-stop shop for TV, social, and performance budgets. Key news included a new AI tool that custom-builds ad inventory around cultural moments like a pop star's tour, exclusive to upfront buyers.
Opinion: For years, upfronts were about premium content and booking the ads adjacent to that premium content. There were sizzle reels, celebrity cameos, and exciting new IP. The implicit message: buy our premium shows, reach our premium audience. Data and targeting were footnotes. Now they're the headline. NBCU has a Performance Insights Hub. Fox has a real-time contextual engine. Amazon led with "we touch every part of a consumer's day" because of their data. The leverage is shifting towards data & tech companies that also happen to be major CTV players now, like Amazon, Google, and Netflix.
The traditional media companies trying to out-tech the tech platforms are in a tricky spot. A contextual engine from Fox and a contextual engine from Amazon are not the same thing. One runs on decades of logged consumer behavior, purchase data, and real-time bidding infrastructure. The other runs on Fox content metadata. 🤷
The evolution towards tech and data is also a problem for the upfront format itself. Tech platforms don't sell reservations — they sell data and performance. That tends to work better for their customers, and it’s more lucrative for them. The more upfronts sound like programmatic advertising pitches, the more buyers will ask why they're locking up budgets 12 months out for something they could buy through a platform whenever they feel like it. It doesn’t help that the pool of streaming TV inventory only continues to grow. The upfront is dying a slow death.
Agencies are probably feeling this most acutely. Traditionally, their value has been rooted in relationships with large broadcasters and cable companies, and their ability to negotiate bulk buys. The upfront has been the agency’s shining moment. Not anymore. Times are a-changin’.
Q1 Earnings!
AppLovin (👍): Revenue was up 59% to $1.84B, beating estimates. The mobile marketing platform saw growth in both gaming and other verticals. Current quarter revenue guidance topped analyst estimates. Shares rose in after-hours trading before giving back most of the gains.
The Trade Desk (👎): Revenue was up 12% to $689M, beating estimates. But it’s the 4th consecutive quarter of declining revenue growth. The DSP said macro headwinds are making marketers cautious in their spending, but it is bullish on the open internet and pointed to CTV and retail media as key growth channels. Shares fell 15% in after-hours trading.
Criteo (👎): Revenue was down 6% to $425M, beating estimates. Criteo-powered Uber Eats and Target Roundel pulled at least $75M in spend commitments. Criteo is the first ad tech partner in OpenAI's ChatGPT Ads beta, but isn’t seeing significant revenue yet. Criteo lowered its full-year guidance. Shares fell as much as 20%.
Taboola (👍): Revenue was up 9% to $466.4M, beating estimates. The native ad platform raised its full-year revenue outlook, with current quarter guidance also topping estimates. Net income was boosted by a $77M legal settlement. Shares rose by double-digits.
Teads (👎): Revenue was down 7% to $266M, missing estimates. CTV revenue was a bright spot, up over 50%. The combined Outbrain / Teads platform is targeting a return to year-over-year revenue growth by Q4. Shares dropped double-digits.
Magnite (🤷): Revenue was up 6% to $164.4M, beating estimates. CTV contribution ex-TAC was up 30% and now accounts for over half of total revenue, driven by live sports and streaming growth. The independent SSP also flagged potential upside from pending Google ad tech trial remedies. Shares didn’t move much in after-hours trading.
PubMatic (👍): Revenue was down 2% to $62.6M, beating estimates. If The Trade Desk hadn't pulled spend via its direct-to-publisher OpenPath solution, revenue would have been up 13%. CTV revenue was up 18% and mobile app revenue was up 25%. PubMatic has run 30+ fully autonomous, end-to-end agentic campaigns. Shares rose about 6% in after-hours trading.
DoubleVerify🔒 (🤷): Revenue was up 10% to $180.8M, narrowly beating estimates. Social measurement revenue was up 23% and CTV measurement transactions were up 28%. The ad verification company reaffirmed its full-year revenue guidance. Shares fell 3% in after-hours trading.
Viant (👍): Revenue was up 25% to $88.5M, beating estimates. The independent DSP saw CTV ad spend hit a record high, accounting for over 50% of total ad spend. Viant touted its acquisition of attention measurement company TVision to strengthen its data and targeting capabilities. Shares rose about 12% in after-hours trading.
Snap (🤷): Revenue was up 12% to $1.53B, meeting estimates. Large North American advertisers pulled back on spending, hurting growth. Global daily active users were up 5% to 483M. Snap ended its $400M deal with Perplexity. Current quarter guidance met estimates. Shares fell 4% in extended trading.
Instacart (👎): Revenue was up 14% to $1.02B, beating estimates; it's the first time the grocery app has ever surpassed $1B in quarterly revenue. Ad revenue was up 16% to $286M. But earnings per share missed estimates and its free cash flow fell 10%. Shares fell 13%.
Warner Bros. Discovery (🤷): Revenue was down 1% to $8.89B, meeting estimates. WBD posted a $2.9B net loss due to the $2.8B termination fee it paid to Netflix as part of the Paramount acquisition of WBD. Streaming revenue was up 9%, with ad revenue up 20% as more subscribers opt into the ad-supported tier. Shares fell slightly.
Disney (👍): Revenue was up 7% to $25.17B, beating estimates. Ad revenue was up 5% and subscription and affiliate fees were up 14%, driven by recent price hikes. The ESPN direct-to-consumer app helped make up for continued erosion in linear TV. Theme park revenue was up 7% to $9.5B. Shares rose 7%.
The New York Times🔒 (👍): Revenue was up 12% to $712.2M, beating estimates. Digital ad revenue was up 31.6% and digital-only subscription revenue was up 16%. The publisher topped 13M subscribers, adding 310K in the quarter, and appears on pace to reach 15M by the end of 2027. Shares rose 8%.
Fox🔒 (👍): Revenue was down 9% to $4B, beating estimates. The decline was largely due to the absence of the Super Bowl, which aired on Fox last year. Cable ad revenue was up 5%, driven by Fox News pricing, and Tubi continues to grow. Shares rose 2.5% in pre-market trading.
Opinion: A slightly positive outlook this week, with seven thumbs up, four thumbs downs, and four shoulder shrugs.
Ad tech earnings leaned negative while media held up better — the 👍 companies were mostly media and content players like Disney, NYT, and Fox, and the 👎 companies were open internet ad tech players like The Trade Desk Criteo, and Teads. It makes sense, as the outlook for the open internet looks bleak.
Given what we saw in the upfronts and in these earnings, here’s our view of the pecking order of companies in the media and advertising space:
Other Notable Headlines
Texas sues Netflix over 'surveillance,' 'addictive' design - Texas AG Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Netflix this week, alleging the company "spied" on viewers, collected data without consent, and deployed "addictive" design features like autoplay after previously marketing itself as the ad-free escape from Big Tech surveillance. Paxton is seeking fines, data destruction, and a requirement that autoplay be turned off by default on children's profiles. The legal pressure arrives just as the company is betting its future growth on the very advertising model the lawsuit puts under scrutiny. Netflix's ad-supported tier is now driving 71% of new subscriber growth and ad revenue is on track to hit $3B in 2026. Netflix just raised prices on its ad-free tier again, a not-so-gentle nudge to get more users onto its ad-supported tier.
Google faces new UK lawsuit over online display ads - A collective lawsuit filed on behalf of British advertisers is seeking up to $4B from Google, alleging the company favored its own display advertising services while shutting out rivals. Google's business practices left advertisers "paying more for less effective" ads, they claim. The lawsuit is just the latest legal headache related to Google's ad business: a separate $18B UK claim on behalf of publishers is already headed to trial, the EU hit Google with a $3.3B antitrust fine last year, and the US government is trying to break up Google's digital ad business entirely.
The Trade Desk's chief strategy officer Samantha Jacobson is heading to OpenAI🔒- Jacobson will join OpenAI as VP of partnerships (monetization), leading the company's advertising, distribution, and platform infrastructure partnerships. Jacobson will retain a board seat at The Trade Desk while a search for her successor is underway. Jacobson's move to OpenAI is no coincidence; the company has been aggressively building out its commercial talent, also recently recruiting Meta ad veteran David Dugan to lead its ads business.
Jacobson is the latest in a string of high-profile exits from TTD: the CMO left in April, the CFO departed in January after just six months, and three board members have since resigned.
Other Notable Headlines
(that you should know about too) 🤓
FTC settles with Media Matters, agrees to drop retaliatory investigation - The settlement comes after a federal judge ruled the agency violated the First Amendment by retaliating against the nonprofit for its reporting on antisemitic content on Elon Musk's X.
WPP's US president to step down amid strategy reset🔒- The agency holding company will not backfill Michael Houston's role after his departure, with the 24-year veteran transitioning to a senior advisor position as WPP restructures under its Elevate28 strategy.
GM chief growth officer Norm de Greve is departing the automaker🔒- De Greve is exiting roughly six months after giving up the CMO title to Lin-Hua W, who was elevated to chief communications and marketing officer.
Pinterest updates recommendation engine to boost ad relevance - The platform's newly developed model factors in what users are actively browsing in real time, addressing a previous blind spot in its ad delivery system.
TikTok launches ad-free subscription plan in the UK - The plan, priced at roughly $5.44 per month in US dollars, also opts subscribers out of ad-driven data collection, a move likely shaped by UK data privacy regulations.
What advertisers need to know about Roblox's evolving ad business🔒- As gaming attracts larger brand budgets, Roblox is overhauling how ads are measured and monetized on its platform. It is adding third-party verification standards and a rev-share model with creators that gives the company a cut of their in-platform brand deals.
Amazon Ads and LinkedIn team up for audience targeting on streaming TV - The partnership lets advertisers use LinkedIn's first-party data, including job title, industry, and seniority, to reach B2B audiences across premium streaming TV inventory through Amazon DSP.
Apologize to your kids in advance.
That’s It For This Week 👋
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