Many in the marketing and tech world have dismissed the Phia scandal as just another affiliate fraud story. 

But it’s not.

This is not a story about the distribution of affiliate payouts. Phia may have taken more than $10 million from merchants, as reported by Bloomberg. The scale and audacity of the alleged misconduct are far greater than many people currently appreciate.

The allegations draw comparisons to Honey, which was accused of taking credit for referrals that had already been earned by another publisher. 

But that misses the more important story. 

Phia, if the allegations are true, did not simply take credit for an existing affiliate referral—it created an affiliate commission that should not have existed. So any shopping session in which the extension is active could become an affiliate transaction, even when no affiliate was ever present.

That distinction matters. 

According to testing conducted by Capital One Shopping and Edelman, Phia’s iOS Safari extension allegedly opens background tabs and fires affiliate tracking links without an explicit user action when consumers visit participating merchants’ websites. 

These forced clicks are not merely a technical violation of affiliate-network rules, they can lead to legal penalties, and they can cut into an advertisers’ bottom line.

Nearly two decades ago, Edelman uncovered similar conduct by eBay affiliates Shawn Hogan and Brian Dunning, who caused affiliate tracking to be invoked without users clicking. Edelman reported his findings to eBay, which referred the matter to the FBI. Both men were subsequently charged with wire fraud, pleaded guilty and served prison sentences. 

Dunning’s indictment alleged more than $5.3 million in compensation, while Hogan’s alleged more than $15.5 million. 

Phia has not been criminally charged, and the facts of the cases are not identical, but the precedent demonstrates how seriously forced-click schemes can be treated when they are used to collect unearned commissions.

TBPN estimated the revenue allegedly taken at $12 million, and while I haven’t been able to independently verify that, my conversations with industry insiders who have access to enormous amounts of data indicate a similar figure.

That difference changes who is harmed

With Honey, merchants still paid a single affiliate commission on a completed sale, while those commissions shifted among publishers within the affiliate ecosystem. Publishers objected, but advertisers viewed it as a redistribution problem rather than an increase in cost.

The allegations against Phia are different. As Edelman put it: “merchants are the victims of forced clicks.” 

If affiliate clicks are being generated without a legitimate referral, advertisers may be paying commissions on sales that would have occurred anyway. This means Phia’s alleged conduct directly damaged merchants’ bottom lines.

The scale is potentially much larger than Honey’s as well. 

Affiliate marketing typically represents only a portion of an advertiser’s online sales, meaning Honey could affect only transactions already flowing through the affiliate channel. 

Forced clicks, by contrast, reach a larger share of commerce activity.

As Edelman told me, “with forced clicks, both click-through rate and revenue per user will be implausibly high.” These economics should have raised questions internally.

Edelman is unequivocal about intent. He calls it “misconduct,” and outright rejects that this behavior could have come from a software bug: “Based on the nature of the violation, forcing clicks is not something that can be unintentional.”

Another notable aspect of Edelman’s research is that the alleged behavior appears to be concentrated on mobile through an iOS Safari extension, rather than a traditional desktop browser extension. 

Historically, desktop extensions have received far greater scrutiny from researchers, networks and competing publishers. Whether the mobile implementation was intentionally chosen to avoid detection or simply exploited an area that receives less oversight remains an open question.

For the digital marketing ecosystem, however, the most important question is not what Phia allegedly did. It is why the broader ecosystem failed to detect it sooner.

Affiliate marketing depends on trust. Publishers trust that legitimate referrals will be credited. Advertisers trust that commissions reflect genuine incremental value. Consumers trust that cashback and loyalty programs operate fairly. Every high-profile controversy erodes that confidence, regardless of whether it involves Honey, Phia or the next shopping assistant.

As shopping increasingly shifts toward AI-powered agents and browser automation, the industry’s reputation will depend less on its ability to track commissions and more on its ability to demonstrate that those commissions were legitimately earned.

This story was originally published in On Background with Mark Stenberg, a free, weekly newsletter that explores the key themes shaping the media industry. You can sign up for it here.

Last week, I reported that Newsweek had seen its traffic decline nearly 75% in a single year, a collapse that coincided with layoffs across its sales, rankings, and video teams and the departures of two senior executives.

This week, chief executive Dev Pragad offered a counter-narrative: Despite the decline in readership, Newsweek is on pace to surpass $100 million in revenue for the first time in its 93-year history.

In a testament to the merits of revenue diversification, both things are true. 

The publisher whose turnaround was built on a sophisticated programmatic advertising business has watched that foundation erode. Revenue from its publishing division is expected to decline between 20% and 25% this year, according to Pragad. 

But critically, the businesses it bolted on over the past two years—internally referred to by their shorthands, Nexus and AdPrime—have grown quickly enough to more than cover the difference.

“When [traffic declines] come, they really are unpleasant,” Pragad said. “Despite that, this year will be our highest revenue ever.”

The company is projecting at least 10% revenue growth in 2026, up from roughly 3% in 2025, according to Pragad, who declined to share a revenue breakdown by source. Since taking over in 2018, he said, Newsweek has generated more than $500 million in cumulative revenue at profit margins of roughly 20%.

The merits of diversification 

The largest driver of its revenue growth is Adprime, the healthcare-focused demand-side platform Newsweek acquired in June 2025, when most publishers were divesting their adtech assets. 

The unit is pacing to more than triple its revenue this year, from $14.8 million to north of $40 million, at a profit margin above 10%, driven by healthcare advertising and connected TV inventory, according to Pragad.

Such growth would make Adprime, a business Newsweek bought without raising outside capital, responsible for roughly 40% of company revenue in its first full year under Newsweek ownership.

Nexus, the business-to-business division housing its rankings business and events, is growing just under 20% year over year, with rankings up roughly 15% and events between 40% and 50%, according to Pragad. 

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After having to cancel an event when a key sponsor dropped out, the company has also shifted its event strategy. 

Now, Newsweek is working to build an experiential portfolio powered by a delegate-fee model, which is designed to attract five or six sponsors per event rather than one or two, de-risking a business that has historically leaned on anchor sponsors.

Video has become another source of growth. 

Non-programmatic video revenue is expected to grow roughly tenfold between 2025 and 2026, according to Pragad, anchored by a seven-figure sponsored franchise, Unconventional, and two six-figure franchises, Newsmakers and From the Paddock. Its social video operation, which includes 2.4 million TikTok followers, generates high-six-figure revenue.

An uncertain future

None of this erases the damage to publishing, which Pragad has deliberately walled off into its own unit so that rankings and events revenue do not subsidize it. 

The saving grace of the division is its eight-figure syndication revenue, which is unaffected by search. 

Likewise, a newsletter list of just under 2 million free subscribers serves as a key source of engagement, one the publisher intends to use to bolster its subscription business. Pragad declined to share the exact number of paying subscribers Newsweek has, calling it only “on the small side,” but the business is a priority and is expected to grow 20% this year.

Still, the headwinds buffeting the core Newsweek business were substantial enough to spur layoffs, and the company could face further challenges in the space going forward.

The full rollout of Google’s AI-generated search results has yet to arrive, Pragad noted. When it does, the Newsweek audience could shrink considerably further, a scenario that could force a more dramatic response.

For now, the publisher is betting that engagement and subscriptions can replace scale. 

“The era of big audiences has peaked and is starting to decline,” Pragad said. “Engagement and subscription is the next thing.”

Talking Heds

Semafor Cinema (EXCLUSIVE): The arms race among publishers to build out their video offerings is officially afoot. The New York Times’ executive editor called its effort to ramp up The Times’ video offering as transformational as its transition from print to digital, and a slew of other outlets, including Fortune, The Guardian, and Bloomberg Media, have sunk serious coin into becoming multimedia platforms. On Tuesday, Semafor joined suit, poaching its new video lead Adam Banicki from Fortune and announcing plans to debut as many as six new shows in the coming months. Specifically, Semafor has adopted an “anti-scale” strategy, which I detailed here, in hopes of capturing the eyeballs of the executive class. Monetization and cost structure will be paramount in these efforts: Remember, these publishers are competing with creators shooting walk-and-talk videos on their mobile phones, so expensive, polished productions are not necessarily the answer. 

Fanatics Festivities: The multiday sports extravaganza Fanatics Fest returns to New York City on Thursday, where the full depth of CEO Michael Rubin’s Rolodex will be on display. Athletes, agents, media, creators, and vendors will fill the Javits Center for four days, which will surely yield a glut of high-visibility social content. There are rumors LeBron James will use the forum to announce which team he next intends to join. The festival, just in its third year, has quickly emerged as a tentpole in the sports media landscape, a testament to how influential Fanatics has become in recent years. The company, which operates three distinct businesses—licensing and merchandise, collectibles, and gambling—sits at a unique nexus in the world of professional sports, and I would not be surprised to see it expand further in the near future.

YouTube IP: Following the breakout success of Backrooms, whose wunderkid director Kane Parsons I profiled in May, Hollywood has taken to scouring YouTube for other intellectual property native to the platform that it could turn into the next surprise blockbuster. According to The Wall Street Journal, YouTube creator Trevor Henderson recently sold the rights to his creation, a faceless monster called Siren Head, for north of $1 million, while the film rights for a series born on the platform, called The Mandela Catalogue, recently sold for “millions of dollars. The only problem? Parsons himself told me that such efforts are likely to fail. Hollywood loves a silver bullet, and it thinks it has found one in YouTube-native IP. But the necessary conditions for a thread of internet lore to turn into a runaway hit are still rare, regardless of the recent body of evidence pointing to the contrary. 

On Lines: New York Magazine recently chronicled what has become an omnipresent sight on the streets of New York: long lines for viral foodstuffs. To its credit, the piece quickly dispenses with the appropriate caveats: Lines are nothing new, and they are the result of a constellation of factors. Bloomberg Media also joined the discourse, examining the commercial impact these queues have on the businesses involved. I cannot help but think that the phenomenon mirrors the broader embrace of events that has gripped the media industry in recent years, which is partially a byproduct of work-from-home culture and a related desire for in-person experience. The queues are just another proof point that cultural experiences that bring likeminded folks out of their homes and into the presence of their peers, especially in an intentional, specifically not serendipitous fashion, will only continue to swell in value.

Hydration Brakes Bank: At the start of the World Cup, I predicted that its new hydration breaks would be reviled by fans, tolerated by players, and adored by advertisers. The novel ad inventory is directly integrated into the game and serves as the only commercial opportunity in the otherwise unbroken halves of play. As it turns out, they have also been quite lucrative. According to some very take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt back-of-the-napkin math from The Hollywood Reporter, the breaks have likely generated at least $250 million in revenue, with some estimates reaching as high as $600 million. With the cost of sports rights only slated to rise, rights owners will be loathe to leave such money on the table going forward. For better or for worse, the greatest legacy of the 2026 World Cup might not be its winner, but the introduction of ad breaks into a sport that successfully resisted them for 138 years. RIP.

Quote/Unquote

This week in Quote/Unquote, I spoke with Mike Shehan, the chief revenue officer of the connected television company Telly and the founder of the video ad platform SpotX, which he sold to Magnite in 2021.

In the conversation, Mike and I talked about how Telly has evolved from its initial, eye-catching value proposition—free televisions in exchange for detailed first-party data—into a pitch rooted in the integrated advertising the platform offers marketers. 

And this week, you can also watch an edited version of our conversation here.

This interview has been edited. This edition of Quote/Unquote is sponsored by Telly.

Mark Stenberg: What is the Telly business, and how has it gotten to where it is today?

Mike Shehan: It’s completely turning this 80-year-old industry of manufacturing, distributing, and monetizing TVs on its head. You get this free, amazing TV in exchange for data—we ask 120 questions in order to get the TV. That enables us to see every single ad and every piece of content that plays across the entire ecosystem, and we can detect how many people are in the room watching.

Mark: The first stage of the business was handing out free TVs to build the data set. Now you’re more focused on the ad products themselves. How is that going?

Mike: Our home screen ads are truly unique. We’re not sneaking spots and dots into a two-minute break here and there—the ads are persistent. Last quarter we served over 50,000 unique advertisers, probably 10 times more than last year. We’ve shown these ads drive much higher brand recall, around 250%, and click-through rates quadruple when we hold those ads there for two minutes or longer.

Mark: Turning TV into a performance marketing channel is something of a holy grail in CTV, and shoppability was a big effort of Telly’s for a while. How is that going?

Mike: The jury’s still out on transacting on a device. What advertisers want is to reach more people per impression. When two or more people are in a room, we know they’re 42% more likely to talk about that ad. 

Mark: What headwinds is Telly navigating?

Mike: On the ad-tech side, TV buying—that’s where you’ll find the headwinds. Anytime you introduce innovation, the challenge is adoption. I saw the same thing in 2014, when CTV ads were introduced en masse. There’s no argument—CTV ads are better in every single way than traditional linear ads. But buyers have established planning cycles, measurement frameworks, allocated budgets. It took years back then just to get CTV ad buying.

Mark: The name of the game in CTV right now is consolidation—Fox buying Roku, the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. Does that affect Telly?

Mike: We don’t really view anybody else as our competitor. I spent 20 years building companies like SpotX, and every day was spent asking who’s getting between me and my customer, who’s moving my cheese. I don’t feel that at all at Telly. We don’t need 80 million Tellys like Roku has. Our ability to generate revenue from the Tellys that are out there is multiples higher.

Pulled Quotes

“You need journalists on Earth.”
Venture capitalist Keith Rabois, explaining the thesis behind the unlikely outlet State Affairs
READ MORE

“All journalists in the newsroom need to be creator-forward.”
Semafor vidoe lead Adam Banicki, on newsrooms cultivating in-house talent
READ MORE

“We don’t think the box office, Experiences, or brand value would suffer if the library were on a competing global streamer.”
Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahal, on the case for Disney exiting the streaming business
READ MORE

“You’d think that a magazine that’s been around for 169 years would possess a better sense of life’s continuities.”
The New Republic’s Timothy Noah, on The Atlantic’s “end-ism fetish”
READ MORE

The Marketing Vanguard at Cannes series continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Julia Goldin, chief marketing and product officer at Lego. 

In this conversation, Julia shares how Lego has grown from a children’s toy company into a global experience brand loved by kids, teens and adults, without losing the creative system that made it iconic in the first place. 

She offers insights into the discipline behind that growth: knowing what to say no to, protecting authenticity, taking calculated risks and treating mistakes as part of the work. 

What you’ll learn:

• How Lego expanded from a toy brand into a multi-generational creative experience
• Why saying no is one of the most important brand-building decisions a CMO can make
• How to balance innovation risk with consumer trust and brand authenticity
• Why mistakes are essential to learning, unlearning and relearning
• How Lego SmartPlay uses technology to enhance physical play without adding more screens
• Why human creativity is the real competitive advantage in the age of tech 
• How partnerships like Formula 1 and World Cup campaigns become bigger than product launches
• This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

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About our guest: 

Julia Goldin is the Chief Marketing and Product Officer at Lego, where she has spent 11 years helping shape the brand into a multi-generational creative experience. Under her leadership, Lego has grown across children, teens and adults, while expanding its connection with girls and women builders. 

From Lego SmartPlay to high-profile partnerships with Formula 1 and World Cup campaigns, she has helped Lego push into new spaces while staying grounded in authenticity, trust and the limitless possibilities of the Lego system in play. 

Her leadership philosophy is clear: Creativity grows when teams are curious, willing to make mistakes and disciplined enough to protect what the brand stands for.

Episode Highlights: 

[02:44] Why Lego’s Growth Comes from Limitless Possibility — Julia describes the Lego system in play as something with limitless creative potential. That belief shapes how she works with her team: Every idea can be built on, pushed further and made stronger. For marketers, this is the difference between treating a brand as a fixed asset and treating it as a creative platform. The strongest brands do not just repeat what worked before, but rather look for new expressions of the same truth.

[03:15] Why Saying No Protects Brand Authenticity — Julia is clear that Lego cannot and should not be everywhere. Consumers expect the brand to be authentic, which means not every partnership, extension or opportunity is right, even when it looks commercially attractive. That discipline matters because overextension can quietly weaken trust. For CMOs, the sharper question is not only what the brand can do next but also what the brand should refuse to do.

[06:30] Why Perfect Execution Can Kill Innovation — Julia makes the case that risk-taking is not optional if brands want to grow. In her view, if you remove risk, you end up playing too safe to succeed. She connects this to the act of building with Lego itself: if you never make a mistake while building, you are probably not really building properly. The same applies to marketing and product innovation. Mistakes are not proof that the work is broken. They are often proof that the team is learning.

[08:45] Making Lego More Accessible for Time-Starved Adults — Julia explains how Lego has evolved its adult offering beyond highly complex, time-intensive builds. While those products still matter, the brand now offers more accessible options for adults who want creativity but may not have hours to commit. That shift shows a sharp understanding of audience friction. Growth does not always require changing the brand promise. Sometimes it means removing the barriers that stop more people from participating in it.

ABC News’ Good Morning America snapped NBC News’ Today’s 24-week win streak, becoming the most-watched morning news program in total viewers for the week of July 6.

GMA had 24,000 more viewers than Today during the week that just concluded. ABC News’ morning news program was also the only morning broadcast to finish with week-to-week gains in total viewers.

Meanwhile, Today continued its reign in the advertiser-coveted demo and was also the only newscast to finish with gains within this category. At the same time, CBS News’ CBS Mornings was down in both measured categories.

According to Nielsen’s national live+same-day big data plus program ratings, GMA averaged 2.809 million total viewers and 416,000 viewers in the A25-54 demo for the week of July 6. Compared to the previous week, ABC News’ morning show was up +1% among total viewers but down -9% in the demo. When looking at how it performed in the same week in 2025, GMA was up by +8% in total viewers but experienced a -6% decline in the demo.

Today remained the No. 1 morning show in the demo with 599,000 viewers, but it dropped to second place in total viewers, finishing with 2.785 million for the just-concluded week. The broadcast saw a -1% decrease in total viewers but grew by +5% in the A25-54 demo compared to the previous week. When put up against the same week in 2025, Today was up +18% in total viewers and +25% in the demo.

CBS Mornings had 1.617 million total viewers and 253,000 viewers in the prized demo for the week of July 6. Compared to the previous week, CBS News’ morning show was down by -7% in total viewers and -12% in the demo—the only morning show with week-to-week declines. Versus the same week in 2025, CBS Mornings saw a decline of -11% in total viewers and -6% in the demo—the only morning show to decline within this yearly comparison.

*Please note that year-over-year comparisons are based on Nielsen Big Data+Panel (2025) vs. Panel (2025) measurements.

July 6, 2026  (Nielsen Big Data + Panel):

	ABC	NBC	CBS
• Total Viewers:	2,809,000	2,785,000	1,617,000
• A25-54:	416,000	599,000	253,000

Source: Nielsen, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49 National Live+Same Day Big Data Plus Panel Program Ratings Current Week (w/o 7/6/26), Previous Week (w/o 6/29/26) and Year-Ago Week (w/o 7/7/25). Season to date: Most Current Data Stream: 2025-2026 Season (9/22/25–7/12/26) and 2024-2025 Season (9/23/24–7/13/25). Season averages based on Big Data Plus Panel ratings start with the 2023-2024 season.

The Trade Desk has appointed Kristi Argyilan as its new chief commercial officer.

Argyilan, an advertising and commerce industry veteran, joins the popular demand-side platform from Uber, where she helmed the advertising business globally. She’s held previous leadership roles at Target, Albertsons, and IPG. 

At The Trade Desk, Argyilan will be responsible for driving growth as the company adapts to an ad landscape increasingly shaped by AI. Argyilan steps into a position vacated last summer by Tim Sims, who held the role for under two years. 

She will take the post officially later this month and will report directly to the company’s CEO Jeff Green. 

Green signaled his support for Argyilan’s appointment in a press release Wednesday, highlighting her “exceptional ability to bring together customers, partners and teams around a shared vision—and then turn that vision into measurable business growth.” She’ll focus on helping clients “seize the opportunities created by AI, commerce, and the open internet,” Green added, “while strengthening the ecosystem that makes that innovation possible.”

Argyilan, for her part, believes The Trade Desk is “uniquely positioned to help marketers navigate what’s next,” she said. She expressed support for The Trade Desk’s “commitment to innovation, transparency and the open internet,” and said she’s excited to help clients and partners “unlock new opportunities for growth.”

She will leave Uber after about a year and a half at the ridesharing giant, where she helped to scale the advertising business globally and establish the company as a more serious commerce media player. Josh Butler, general manager and global head of sales at Uber for Business, will take over Argyilan’s responsibilities on an interim basis. 

“We are grateful for Kristi’s contributions to growing this business and wish her the best in her next chapter,” an Uber spokesperson told ADWEEK. The spokesperson said that Uber’s ads business “continues to fire on all cylinders,” noting that it’s generated over $2 billion in annualized revenue in a year-over-year spike of more than 50%. 

Argyilan’s move arrives in the midst of a wider leadership shakeup at adtech company.

Last month, it brought on Zendesk alum Sarah Gavin to serve as CMO following the departure of longtime marketing leader Ian Colley, and also appointed Nate Olmstead as chief financial officer—the company’s fourth finance chief in the span of roughly a year. Earlier this week, The Trade Desk named former Google and LinkedIn ad exec Penry Price to its board.

Meanwhile, a string of top leaders have exited the company in recent months, including Sims and Colley as well as chief revenue officer Anders Mortensen, chief strategy officer Samantha Jacobson, chief financial officer Alex Kayyal, and three board members. 

Now, the company said in today’s press release, The Trade Desk is entering “its next phase of growth.”

“The leaders we’ve welcomed over the past month bring world-class experience, fresh perspectives and an unwavering commitment to our customers,” Green said. “As AI transforms advertising and the open internet enters its next phase of growth, their leadership will help ensure we continue building the products, partnerships and capabilities our clients need to succeed for years to come.”

Argyilan will have her work cut out for her; The Trade Desk has in recent months undergone high-profile scuffles with clients and platform partners, reworked its platform, and seen its financial growth plateau. It was the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2025.

Both Argyilan and The Trade Desk declined to comment beyond the press release.