June 10th-June 16th // Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. Walmart and Google did a deal. Fox and Roku did an even bigger deal!
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Top Stories 👁
Fox to acquire Roku for $22 billion
Source: AdExchanger
June 15th, 2026
Summary: Foku?!?! The deal makes Fox the owner of the two most-watched free streaming services in the US: Tubi and The Roku Channel. Per Nielsen's March 2026 Gauge report, The Roku Channel accounted for 3% of all US TV viewing, while Tubi sat at 2.2%. Combined, that's over 5% of all TV viewing in America from two free, ad-supported services under one roof. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch says the two services will stay separate, at least for now. There's roughly a one-third audience overlap between them, meaning they reach different viewers.
Fox also gets Roku's hardware business, TV operating system, first-party data from over 100M streaming households, and ad tech assets like Roku Ads Manager, a self-serve ad-buying platform for SMBs and performance advertisers. Roku had $4.7B in total 2025 revenue, up 15% YoY.
Roku CEO Anthony Wood will stay on in an ongoing role and join Fox's board once the deal closes in the first half of 2027, pending regulatory and shareholder approval.
Fox sold its 5% stake in Roku in 2020 to fund its $440M acquisition of Tubi. Now it's paying $22B to get 100% of Roku back. Fox launched its own BVOD streaming service, Fox One, focused on live sports and other programming, last year.
Deal Grades:
Fox: A
Roku: B+
Opinion: If anyone was questioning whether Roku is an ad company, and not a hardware company, question no more. Fox makes its money off ads and it’s buying Roku to make even more money off ads.
How? Well the obvious stuff is acquiring more ad inventory, more ad salespeople, and more ad infrastructure. The less obvious stuff is cross-pollinating data across both Fox and Roku to increase the value of all the inventory (remember Roku has the highest CTV device penetration in the US and thus the largest CTV household ID graph), cross-selling Fox inventory to Roku’s SMB and mid-market customers, hedging the decline of their linear business with more CTV growth, modernizing their talent and tech for the streaming and digital era, and diversifying their ad business outside of their O&O inventory by becoming a distribution gatekeeper of third-party streaming apps. Fox now controls what 100M+ households see when they turn on their TV. A major point of leverage is the Roku home screen. And every streaming service that wants distribution has to negotiate with Fox now.
If you squint hard enough, this moves Fox from the streamer category to the walled garden category. And it “skips over” pure-play OEMs (e.g. Samsung, LG) as it makes the leap. Fox now owns hardware, data, inventory, and ad tech. Which would put it in competition with the Googles and Amazons of the world. And given its CTV focus, Fox could claim that it's the only specialized CTV walled garden in the space. With all its assets, Fox would create tons of leverage in the marketplace and significant network effects. Good position to be in. Now they have to execute.
Walmart challenges Amazon with new Google deal🔒
Source: Adweek
June 11th, 2026
Summary: Walmart and Google are joining forces to enable advertisers to target Walmart shoppers on YouTube and measure whether those ads led to actual Walmart sales, all through Google's DV360 platform. The new program is invite-only at launch, with full self-service access in DV360 being the end goal.
YouTube accounts for 13% of total US TV viewing per Nielsen, making it the biggest single streaming destination in the country. Walmart is one of the world’s largest retailers, serving 150M customers a week. The audience overlap between the two is significant.
This deal is part of a broader Walmart push to make its shopper data available across more media platforms. Last year, Walmart dropped the exclusivity clause🔒 in its Trade Desk deal, opening the door to partnerships with other ad tech companies like Google, Yahoo, and Magnite🔒. Now it's getting in on YouTube as it tries to close the advertising gap with Amazon. It still has a ways to go: Its ad business did $6.4B in 2025, while Amazon's pulled in $68B.
Opinion: Google and Walmart partnering up in order to take a swing at Amazon’s ad business is the ultimate sign of respect. Google and Walmart also partnered up earlier this year to enable agentic commerce within Gemini🔒, a swing at Amazon’s e-commerce business.
When the Walmart, Magnite, Yahoo partnership was announced, we opined that Walmart may be going the ‘anti-walled garden’ route because every ad tech company is desperate for Walmart’s commerce data, thus Walmart is probably getting favorable terms to access their tech and demand. Why should Walmart build or buy when it can rent for free? You could make the case that Google is also desperate for Walmart’s commerce data, but less so than every other ad tech company. After all, Google owns YouTube. That makes us wonder whether the terms of this deal were favorable for Walmart at all. The power dynamic here may be murkier, which makes us question the deal’s longevity. For now, this is awesome news for marketers that need an alternative to Amazon Ads.
Other Notable Headlines 👀
Publicis and The Trade Desk settle dispute over ad tech fees🔒 - Publicis has lifted its ban on recommending The Trade Desk, closing out a standoff that began in March when the holding company accused the DSP of improperly bundling fees into client campaigns. The two companies issued a joint statement saying they have resolved their differences and are focused on delivering results for advertisers, though neither side disclosed whether any financial remedies were part of the deal. The Trade Desk's stock fell roughly 13% after Publicis issued its alert to clients. The episode put a spotlight on a simmering tension between agencies and The Trade Desk, which has been pushing to work directly with brands for some time. Omnicom, which launched its own TTD audit🔒 in the wake of the Publicis news, has yet to say publicly where that stands, but the initial review reportedly turned up no issues. We have a feeling that The Trade Desk’s relationship with the agency holding companies will continue to feel tense.
Uber aims to juice Its $2B ad business with Google and Meta🔒 - Uber Advertising is moving beyond its own app inventory for the first time, striking deals with platforms like Google and Meta to let brands reach Uber audiences on their properties across social, connected TV, and the open web. The move signals a new phase for a business that already generates over $2B in annual ad revenue, a number Uber's CEO flagged during its February earnings call. Uber is also rolling out new ad formats, including ride-based offers that let brands serve sponsored discounts to users and premium takeover placements on Uber Eats. A key part of the pitch is Uber's first-party data; the company knows a lot about where its users are going and when, giving advertisers a unique understanding of user behavior.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT ads get its first conversion API partner in LiveRamp🔒 - OpenAI has signed LiveRamp as its first independent conversion API partner, marking a notable step in its effort to build a credible performance advertising business inside ChatGPT. The setup lets qualifying brands close the loop between a ChatGPT ad and a real purchase, even when no click was involved, by routing encrypted transaction data from the brand through LiveRamp, which provides a hashed email to identify the buyer in a privacy-safe way, back to OpenAI. One complication looms: LiveRamp's pending acquisition by Publicis raises questions about whether it can maintain the neutrality🔒 that has made it a trusted intermediary across the industry.
Hightouch offers Publicis up to $1.2B for key LiveRamp assets - Speaking of LiveRamp, fast-growing customer data startup Hightouch wants a piece of it. Hightouch, which is valued at $2.75B, has sent Publicis' board a letter offering up to $1.2B for LiveRamp's identity and data onboarding products, including RampID and LiveRamp Connect. Publicis only announced its $2.2B all-cash bid to take LiveRamp private last month, and Hightouch is trying to break off a couple of the most strategically valuable pieces. For Hightouch, adding LiveRamp's identity assets to its existing customer data platform business would make its platform stickier and give it a larger addressable market.
Electronic Arts launches EA Advertising, a new way for brands to advertise ‘directly into gameplay’ - EA has formally organized its advertising business under a new banner called EA Advertising, opening up its games portfolio to brand integrations that go well beyond traditional display formats. Brands can now show up inside gameplay through stadium signage, scoreboards, and broadcast-style overlays, as well as deeper activations like sponsored challenges and branded in-game items. The company is backing the offering with a new proprietary ad server aimed at privacy-safe targeting and accredited measurement. EA also launched the EA SPORTS Partner Program alongside it, giving brands a broader set of entry points, including live events and community programs. With over 120M monthly players across titles like Madden NFL and EA SPORTS FC, EA is positioning itself as a serious destination for brand budgets.
Other Notable Headlines
(that you should know about too) 🤓
The Trade Desk names Sarah Gavin as its new CMO and EVP - Gavin comes from Zendesk, where she served as chief communications officer and interim CMO; before that she spent over a decade at Expedia Group. The hire comes after a stretch of significant executive turnover at TTD.
WPP forecasts AI search ads to become the fastest-growing channel in advertising🔒 - The holding company projects AI search ads will grow from less than 2% of search ad revenue this year to nearly 40% by 2031, fueled by budget shifts from traditional search and e-commerce.
Pinterest expands AI ad suite, Shopify integration for SMBs - A new customer acquisition feature inside Pinterest’s Performance+ automatically directs spend toward users most likely to be net-new buyers. Shopify merchants can also now launch campaigns directly from the integration in a single click.
TAG loses ground as P&G drops mandate and Google, Trade Desk ditch certifications🔒 - Anonymous industry voices say the audit process seems to be more about optics than actual accountability, and the IAB Tech Lab's free tools have made some of TAG's core offerings feel redundant.
Havas acquires experiential agency Archrival - The Lincoln, Nebraska-based shop is known for building brand affinity with younger audiences through sports, campus programs, and immersive activations, counting adidas, Spotify, and Netflix among its roster. It will join Havas Play.
Adelaide launches pre-bid attention targeting inside Amazon's DSP - The integration lets buyers filter inventory by attention quality score before bidding, rather than measuring attention after a campaign has already run.
Meta will use off-site activity to customize feed and AI responses - The same data Meta collects from ad partners via the Meta Pixel will now shape what users see in their feeds and how Meta AI responds to them.
Samsung is opening up its TV home screen ads to programmatic buying - Starting in Q3, the premium inventory will be available through The Trade Desk and Google DV360, with Magnite's SpringServe handling ad serving.
Nexxen plugs into Claude and Google's AI protocols to let agencies automate media buying🔒 - Nexxen is letting agencies plug their own AI tools directly into its buying platform, cutting out the manual work of managing DSPs one by one.
Substack unveils sponsorship program teaming advertisers with newsletter authors - Substack is brokering direct brand partnerships with individual newsletter creators, productizing what some of its biggest writers were already doing on their own.
Magnite Orchestration wants to be the wiring behind AI ad buying - The idea is to let automated buying systems discover, evaluate, and transact on premium inventory without requiring custom integrations between individual buy- and sell-side platforms.
Viant expands its publisher solutions with a new suite of monetization and transparency tools - The centerpiece is SupplyIQ, a dashboard that shows publishers how their inventory looks to Viant's bidder and where gaps in signal quality are costing them demand.
Digiday scorecard: As competition between DSPs heats up, buyers rank market rivals🔒 - Thirteen media buyers ranked five major DSPs on transparency, targeting, inventory, pricing, and UX. Yahoo came out on top with a 7.3, edging out TTD at 7.2 and DV360 at 7.0, while Amazon and StackAdapt trailed behind.
Britain will ban under-16s from social media apps, including TikTok and YouTube - The UK joins Australia, Canada, and a growing list of countries tightening children's access to social media. The US has pushed back, citing free speech concerns and added burdens on American tech companies.
That’s It For This Week 👋
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