Women’s sports investment is growing, and it’s scoring big for advertisers.

In a new “Women’s Sports Playbook” report from WPP Media, in partnership with EDO, Adverteyes, and VideoAmp, which aims to be a guide for brands to invest in women’s sports, the companies reveal that recent ad growth in women’s sports is driving results. That includes finding a 79% year-over-year increase in ad impressions for women’s sports and 20% higher engagement with ads than on non-sports broadcast and cable. 

Showcasing the impact, while analyzing ads from major brands, the report found that Ally Financial’s ads delivered 85% higher engagement when aired during women’s sports compared to broadcast and cable average outside of live sports.

“What it illuminates is what we have been saying for the last five years that we’ve been heavily investing in women’s sports, which is that this is good business,” Andrea Brimmer, CMO, Ally Financial, told ADWEEK. “It makes exceptional sense as a marketer, and it drives really accretive business results. And I think that a report like this brings the receipts.”

And those receipts are leaving an impression.

According to the report, investment in women’s sports is estimated to be up nearly 70% year over year, with the total spend reaching about $127 million. Meanwhile, ad airings have increased nearly 30% to nearly 30,000.

Additionally, audiences watching women’s sports are especially attractive to advertisers, as fans overindex for households with incomes of $200,000 or more. Meanwhile, reaching those audiences authentically with athlete-led, human, and culturally aligned creative drives higher emotional engagement, attention, and brand recall than generic creative, the report states.

Martin Blich, executive director and U.S. head of sports partnerships and investment, WPP Media, said the report comes on the back of WPP’s previous pledge to double client investment within the women’s sports marketplace, a pledge it made and quickly surpassed in 2024.

“This is about taking what was, three plus years ago, a cultural movement, and now, lending credit to the fact that it is one of the highest growing performance environments within media,” Blich said.

Getting in the game

Interestingly, as the women’s sports marketplace grows, it also brings out the competitive side of brands.

“On one hand, I’m really happy about it,” Brimmer said of the increase in brand interest. “On the other hand, it’s going to be difficult for those of us, like Ally, State Farm, AT&T, and Google, who were the early investors, because we’re going to get priced out of things that we’ve historically held onto.”

Of course, Ally isn’t going anywhere and continues to make strides in newer women’s sports leagues, recently teaming with Scripps Sports to bring the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s first-ever nationally televised game in the U.S. on March 28.

The company is also advancing its 50/50 pledge, announced in 2022, which commits to equal media investment in men’s and women’s sports within five years. Brimmer said the company is now on track to complete that goal ahead of schedule.

“We made [the 50/50 pledge] four years ago. We gave ourselves a five-year window, and we are on track to meet the pledge this year,” Brimmer said. “I think by all accounts, we’ll hit it a year early.”

Brimmer also noted that, since the 50/50 pledge, the company’s brand value has increased 40%.

WPP Media’s report notably comes out as companies are putting together their plans for this year’s upfront season, and Blich told ADWEEK he hopes the “Women’s Sports Playbook” helps the market continue to sustain itself and grow.

“This is a big moment for us,” Blich said. “This is a moment where we’re putting that stake in the ground to the marketplace, to talk about how we continue to lead the conversation within and around women’s sports, which is why we’re creating this playbook.”

Unfortunately, even a performance of the KPop Demon Hunters song “Golden” couldn’t make Oscars ratings go up, up, up.

Today, according to Nielsen national live+same day big data plus panel program ratings, the 98th Oscars took a significant dip, dropping to 17.86 million viewers.

The show, which aired on ABC and streamed live on Hulu, was down around 2 million viewers from its 2025 numbers. For the 97th Oscars, Disney and Nielsen announced that viewership reached 19.69 million, a five-year high for the show.

Beyond the overall viewership, the 98th Oscars received a 3.92 rating among Adults 18-49. According to Disney, the show was the No. 1 primetime entertainment telecast of the 2025-2026 season. However, those numbers are also down from last year’s show, which reached a 4.54 rating and was driven by mobile and PC viewing by younger viewers.

In a bright spot, the 98^th Oscars was the No. 1 most social program of the night, with social impressions increasing more than 42% vs. last year, totalling more than 184 million, according to Disney.

The viewership dip is somewhat surprising, considering last year’s Oscars received nearly 19.7 million viewers while also dealing with technical glitches in the program’s first year streaming on Hulu. Those glitches seemed to have been fixed this time around.

This year’s Oscars also brought back fan-favorite host Conan O’Brien, and popular films, including One Battle After Another and Sinners, were the big winners.

Regarding the show’s content, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another took home six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Meanwhile, Sinners, which led with a record 16 nominations, had four awards, with Michael B. Jordan winning in the Best Actor category. The movie also made history, with Autumn Durald Arkapaw becoming the first woman to win the award for achievement in cinematography.

Despite the dip, Disney achieved an Oscars ad sellout heading into the event, with pricing up double-digit percent-wise over last year.

For the 2025 Oscars, Disney brought in between $1.7 million and $2.3 million for a 30-second spot. In 2024, Disney was seeking between $1.7 million and $2.2 million.

Meanwhile, the company is already talking to advertisers about securing spots in the 2027 Oscars.

“As we lead into Q1 2027, there are brands looking to take big creative swings with us and find ways to be able to link across film, sport, and music,” John Campbell, svp, streaming, entertainment, and multicultural solutions at Disney, recently told ADWEEK.

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South by Southwest, the 38-year-old annual conglomeration of festivals in Austin, Texas, looked a little different this year.

The Austin Convention Center was torn down over the past year, removing the building that’s served as SXSW’s central hub since the 1990s. As a result, the 2026 festival was more spread out around downtown, with events popping up in eight hotels and dozens of music venues. Several blocks of Congress Ave., which runs through the heart of the city and is capped at the north end by the Texas Capitol building, became a pedestrian-only thoroughfare during the event’s seven days, creating a block party atmosphere open to attendees and Austinites alike.

In between panels, meetings, music showcases, agency parties, and dinners, ADWEEK reporters also checked out how brands were activating and popping up across Austin this week. While this year’s event didn’t feature many of the over-the-top, immersive, experiential stunts that SXSW was known for pre-pandemic, there were still sneak peeks into new shows and movies, themed bars and restaurants, and on-the-street pop-ups as brands fought to break through during the 300,000-person festival.

Here’s what we saw, and how it ranked, on a scale from one to five tacos:

Paramount+

For its fourth year running, Paramount+ turned a multi-level bar on Rainey Street into The Lodge. Fashioned after a fictional ski lodge atop the mountain that’s been the centerpiece of Paramount’s logo for 112 years, The Lodge houses photo ops, merch, and bars themed after five of the streamer’s properties this year, including the Texas oilfield-based drama Landman, Yellowstone spin-off Marshals, Survivor 50, UFC, and the NFL on CBS. Fans can grab personalized merch, sip on a cold brew and whiskey at a roughneck bar, or fight a robotic UFC coach.

ADWEEK’s rating: 4 out of 5

It’s still a great space and fun activation. However, The Lodge had fewer properties represented this year, which felt like a bit of a letdown after seeing over half a dozen TV shows come to life for previous iterations.

Prime Video

To promote its upcoming film Pretty Lethal, Prime Video stood up a music box of an activation on Congress Ave. in downtown Austin. The space, which was decorated on the outside with ballerina paraphernalia like ballet slippers and stills from the drama flick, was adorned with a rotating ballerina mid-plié on its ceiling. The interior was a mirrored photography studio, where a patient attendant instructed the long line of attendees on how to pose for its six simultaneous cameras, which together created a moving image of its subjects that they could download once back outside.

ADWEEK’s rating: 2 out of 5

The decor was on point(e), and everyone loves a shareable social image, but, ultimately, the activation was effectively just a photo opportunity, something in no short supply at South by Southwest. Waiting in line for 20 minutes to take a photo is not the kind of experience you come away talking about, but at least the rotating ballerina blocked the sun!

Hulu

Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale spin-off, The Testaments, brought the dystopian world of Gilead to Austin on Monday, which was, thankfully, more fun than it sounds. The experience involved a big purple bus, known in the series as Aunt Lydia’s prep school bus, showing up at various parts of Austin, including South Congress Ave and W 4th Street, with purple-clad students, a.k.a. “Plums,” filing out to wish pedestrians a blessed day. They also delivered citygoers tiny, bumbleberry pies, each with a QR code to the show’s trailer and a cryptic message: “Things Are Not What They Seem.”

ADWEEK’s rating: 3 out of 5

Hulu’s SXSW purple party bus marks the start of a multi-city tour, with more stops in Los Angeles and New York. It’s a fairly quick experience that could leave you wondering if there’s more. But maybe that’s the point? If you see the purple people flooding the streets or just enjoy tiny pies, it’s worth checking out. And as they probably say in Gilead, “Under his pie.”

Focus Features

The film studio Focus Features wheeled an Airstream trailer out onto Congress Ave., directly in front of the Paramount Theater, to promote two of its upcoming films. Attendees had the opportunity to peruse a variety of knick-knacks inside the mobile activation, including movie trailers, merchandise, DVDs of old films, and stills from classic Focus Features’ flicks.

ADWEEK’s rating: 2 out of 5

A movie production studio hawking its wares in front of a historic movie theater certainly makes sense on paper, but the overall vibe was a bit lackluster. There was nothing to do except admire the tchotchkes, so the experience felt more like an art gallery than an activation. Plus, you had to pay for the merchandise. Should swag ever come at a cost?

Rivian

SXSW’s title sponsor dumped 2,500 pounds of recycled asphalt onto Congress Ave. to create a course that demonstrates just how agile its new R2 actually is. With the pink dome of the Texas Capitol building as the backdrop, this smaller version of Rivian’s original vehicle climbed up and down steep mounds of asphalt, tipping from side to side and sometimes leaving one or two of its wheels hanging in midair as it navigated the steep hills and sharp turns of the off-road course. Visitors could hop in the front seat with one of the brand’s 27 professional drivers—all Rivian employees from around the country—to experience the dips and tilts firsthand.

ADWEEK’s rating: 4 out of 5

Rivian’s Joyride was a step up from last year, with a more central location on Congress and a photo op with Fujifilm. It was impossible to ignore, full of good vibes, and a thrill to experience.

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The Oscars’ Best Picture category may be getting some new entrants—if Mazda has anything to say about it.

In Mazda’s new campaign, “5 Sides of the All-New CX-5,” which debuted during the 2026 Oscars, the car brand created a cinematic universe in honor of the 2026 CX-5.

Through five short films directed by Paul Hunter, shot by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, and starring Jessamie Waldon Day, the brand showcases different sides of the CX-5 through movie genres, including romance, action, sci-fi, musical, and horror.

The ads were designed to give film fans a cinematic experience outside of the main Oscars broadcast, and a 60-second ad airing during the Academy Awards served as a trailer for the films.

“We had this idea of, ‘Why not do five separate films for the CX-5?’ Because the customer that we’re trying to appeal to not only likes films, but they also lead a multi-dimensional life,” Brad Audet, Mazda’s CMO, said. “These are people who have a lot of things going on in their world, and they have to play different roles. Therefore, the car needs to be a different character.”

Driving the campaign forward

With the CX-5 debuting the same week as the 98th Oscars, Mazda looked to get Disney involved in the process early.

“We’re always thinking about ways where we can leverage and do something unique, and we’ve done this in the past with Disney in different ways,” Audet said. “Rather than waiting until we had an idea baked, we got them involved at the onset.”

According to John Campbell, svp, streaming, entertainment, and multicultural solutions at Disney, the process started with him receiving a late-night text from the creative team behind Mazda’s idea last fall, and things rolled from there.

Among the highlights, the campaign marks Mazda’s debut as an Oscar Silver Sponsor, and the car brand teamed up with both Disney Advertising and AMPAS to align with Disney’s “Oscars Everywhere” strategy.

In addition to the trailer airing in the main show, the fully integrated sponsorship will also extend across TikTok Pulse Premiere, social channels, and a Hulu Takeover, including an ad selector that lets viewers choose which Mazda ad genre they want to see.

Some variations of the short films will debut on Oscar night, with more rolling out until April 1. But the campaign also has a philanthropic element.

As part of the campaign, the brand collaborated with the AMPAS Academy Gold Program, a talent development initiative for the next generation of filmmakers, bringing two Academy Gold alumni on the set of the Mazda commercials.

“Mazda didn’t just want to come in advertising during the Oscars. They wanted to support the future of filmmaking, and that is really important to The Walt Disney Company, as well as AMPAS, and what we seek from partners,” Campbell said. “That doesn’t happen every day.”

As the Academy Gold alumni interacted and collaborated with accomplished filmmakers on set, Disney CreativeWorks captured behind-the-scenes footage. These behind-the-scenes moments were turned into four custom social creatives that will complement Mazda’s campaign and align with the brand’s “Be Moved” mentorship initiative.

Meredith Shea, AMPAS chief membership, impact, and industry officer, who oversees the Academy Gold program, noted that AMPAS was proud to work with Mazda as it looks to “uplift and inspire the next generation so they can envision a future on the Oscars stage.”

Coming soon

Campbell said the collaboration had many moving parts and required trusted partners to pull it off. But it’s that kind of impact that brands are looking for, especially as live events continue to stand out as appointment viewing.

“CMOs want to go beyond just reach, and they want relevance. They want cultural connection, and they want proof that it works,” Campbell said.

Noting the enthusiasm around live tentpole events, Campbell said more Oscars ad units than ever were sold in the previous upfront, and brands are starting brainstorms a lot sooner in order to be closer to the IP and make an impact beyond 30-second spots.

According to Campbell, the live-event enthusiasm is already affecting 2027, with brands engaging Disney in conversations about the 99th Oscars. It adds to Disney’s expectations of a big kick-off to next year, with the College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T, the 69th Grammys, Super Bowl LXI, and the Oscars all happening within weeks of each other.

“As we lead into Q1 2027, there are brands looking to take big creative swings with us and find ways to be able to link across film, sport, and music, and what does that look like for their fandoms? And what does it look like for our fandoms?” Campbell said. “We’re in a lot of rooms ideating right now on what we could potentially bring to life when we have this opportunity to really own the moment for that eight-week period.”

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The McDonald’s Big Arch mishap accidentally set the stage for Burger King’s self-aware Oscars ad.

Earlier in March, after McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski went viral for struggling to eat his own burger, Burger King posted a TikTok of its U.S. and Canada president, Tom Curtis, enthusiastically chomping on a Whopper. Wendy’s and KFC swiftly followed.

The timing was “fortuitous,” Burger King CMO Joel Yashinsky told ADWEEK. That’s because the brand already had the video ready to go, having recently shot content for a pivot that puts diners back at the heart of Burger King’s marketing.

On Feb. 17, well before Kempczinski’s hesitant nibble went viral, Curtis shared his real phone number—305-874-0520—online and invited customers to send suggestions. He’s received 30,000 messages so far and has personally replied to 2,000. By Feb. 26, Burger King had already acted on some of this feedback, updating the bun on its flame-grilled Whopper and rolling out a new squish-proof box for the sandwich.

Yashinsky, who joined Burger King last year from Applebee’s, said the chatter around fast-food CEOs had undeniably “sped up” engagement around the brand’s new mission.

Fresh from retiring what Yashinsky described as its “creepy” King Mascot, and with Curtis having laid the groundwork for Burger King’s new “guest-led” platform, the brand used Sunday night’s Oscars to speak directly to America in a 90-second commercial. “There’s a New King, and It’s You,” it declared.

Spanning seven decades, the self-aware ad mixes classic Burger King commercials with scenes of people tucking into its meals.

The commercial is narrated by Curtis: “There was a time Burger King used to be King. Every meal felt special. Because you felt special. It was great, but somehow, somewhere, fast food just fell off, including us. And that’s not good. So we started listening. I even gave my number out.”

He recounts the common complaints—”old restaurants, slow service, simple mistakes”—as TikTok reviews flash on the screen. “So we fired the King, and found you. Reinvesting nationwide, one restaurant, one team, one burger at a time. When we say you rule, we mean it, and we’re just getting started.”

Although its Big Arch CEO review fell flat, McDonald’s reigns supreme as the world’s most valuable fast-food brand. According to Brand Finance, McDonald’s brand value stands at around $42.6 billion, with Burger King’s at $4.8 billion.

McDonald’s U.S. same‑store sales have been growing at a healthier clip too, climbing about 6.8 % in the most recent quarter, propelled by a focus on value. In the same period, Burger King’s U.S. comps rose a more modest 2.6 %.

A ‘brand for everyone’

The campaign is the culmination of four years of work by the Burger King team, according to Yashinsky, who joined less than 12 months ago. The changes span more than 300 restaurants, with technology upgrades rolled out across more than 1,000 sites, and bringing back its cinnamon apple pies, all in the name of resetting the customer experience.

Now, it’s time to communicate these improvements and position Burger King as a “brand for everyone” that takes pride in its food, the marketer said. “This is a kickoff ad, and this platform will lead us through 2026 into 2027 and perhaps beyond.”

For him, Burger King’s Oscars play is about shifting perceptions. “We do expect there to be a bump in terms of restaurant visits as well as a sales impact too,” he said.

And will he ever bring The King back?

“No, as long as I’m here, he’s been fired,” Yashinsky said.

Production has long been part of Rethink’s business. Now the independent creative agency is making it a priority.

The agency has appointed Jon Legere to the new role of chief production officer. Legere spent 14 years at Anomaly, where he built and ran Unreasonable Studios, the agency’s in-house production arm. At Rethink, he will scale production capabilities across advertising, PR, and design, reporting to global chief operating officer Caleb Goodman.

Legere’s appointment is designed to embed production into Rethink’s workflow from the start rather than treating it as a downstream function. “Production these days is too important to sit at the end of the process,” Legere told ADWEEK. “By creating this role, it’s a real sign that it’s just as important to be right at the beginning.”

Goodman said the hire was driven by an “unmet need” he has observed across the industry, both among clients bringing production in-house and agencies struggling to adapt their own models. As Rethink has expanded its practice areas, he sees an opportunity for production to operate not as a siloed unit, but as an integrated service offering that runs through all of them.

“There’s just some amazing outcomes for our work and for our clients in doing that,” Goodman said.

At Unreasonable Studios, Legere oversaw operations across studios in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Goodman said he is one of the few people who has successfully built high-quality production at scale inside an independent organization. Legere also had a front-row seat to what happens when an indie gets absorbed into a holding company, after Anomaly was acquired by Stagwell, an experience Goodman said brings useful perspective to Rethink’s own journey.

For Legere, Rethink’s independence was the draw. “The fierce independence and commitment to its culture and putting ideas first is rare,” he said. “That freedom is essential to the future of production.”

That independence also shapes how Rethink thinks about production versus the in-housing trend sweeping the industry. Legere was careful to distinguish between the two: Internal production capabilities solve different problems than external partners, he argued, and best-in-class external talent will always have a role.

AI investment is already woven throughout Rethink’s process, and Legere sees production as uniquely positioned to introduce and integrate new tools across the agency as they emerge.

A year from now, Goodman said he wants production at Rethink to stand on equal footing with every other discipline at the agency. He acknowledged that the department hasn’t always gotten the credit it deserves and said further investments and expanded capabilities are already in the works.

“I want Rethink production to be on at least an equal pedestal with the other parts of the agency,” Goodman said. “Because I don’t feel like it’s gotten the credit it’s deserved to date.”

OMD USA has named Bradley Rogers its new CEO, with outgoing chief Chrissie Hanson heading straight to a competitor in turnaround mode.

Hanson, who led OMD USA for four years, is joining Dentsu as North America media CEO and global brand president of Carat. She arrives as the Japanese holding company tries to claw back from a record net loss of ¥327.6 billion ($2.18 billion) for 2025, driven by a massive goodwill impairment in its international business.

Rogers, who takes over March 23, brings more than 25 years of experience across media, creative services, and digital platforms. He comes from Red Ventures, a digital marketing and customer acquisition company, where he served as president.

Previously, he was global president and COO of MRM, part of McCann Worldgroup, overseeing 16 markets for clients including IBM, Mastercard, Microsoft, and Nestlé. Earlier in his career he held senior roles at Ogilvy and Mindshare.

“Bradley brings meaningful business acumen and specialized expertise shaped by leadership roles across media, creative services, commerce and consumer platforms,” said Omnicom Media North America CEO Ralph Pardo. “This unique combination—along with his entrepreneurial mindset and deep understanding for how to be a strategic partner—makes him exceptionally well suited to lead OMD.”

Rogers takes the helm of the top-ranked global media network by Recma for 10 consecutive years. He arrives as Omnicom integrates its recently completed acquisition of IPG—a deal that created the world’s largest advertising holding company—with media expected to be the engine of that combined entity’s growth.

“He knows how to connect capabilities, teams and ideas in ways that help clients navigate that complexity and translate it into real business outcomes,” Pardo said.

At an investor day Wednesday, the company projected 4% constant currency gross revenue growth with media expected to drive the bulk of it, estimated at roughly $6 billion in net revenue on a pro forma basis.

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Last month, the deal that was supposed to reshape Hollywood fell apart. 

After a protracted, highly visible bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix ultimately walked away from the tie-up, forcing Paramount to pay $110 billion for the asset and fork over a $2.8 billion break-up fee to Netflix.

Now, with cash in hand, its stock price rising, and access to an already formidable war chest, the real question is what comes next for the streamer.

The easy answer is nothing. Netflix is the most profitable company in streaming, having generated roughly $13 billion in operating income last year. It has more than 325 million subscribers and no urgent problems to solve. Plus, according to Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips senior advisor Erica Gruene, the history of major media deals is not exactly an advertisement for doing them. 

“If you look at the history of media transactions, it’s basically a warning against it,” Gruene said. “They often destroy a lot more value than they create.”

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A representative for Netflix pointed to recent remarks made by chief financial officer Spence Neumann, who downplayed its M&A ambitions at an investor conference earlier this month.

But the company, which has historically preferred to build products rather than buy them, in recent months demonstrated a newfound openness to paying a premium for the right asset. And the multimonth WBD flirtation suggests an appetite for something larger than its typical small-bet acquisition style.

So, what should the company buy now? I put that question to eight analysts, investors, and media strategists. Their answers ranged from the obvious to the genuinely surprising.

Sports rights or a sports platform

Netflix’s recent push into live programming, most visibly its deal to stream WWE Raw, has made plain that sports programming is a priority for the streaming giant. 

But the company still lacks a coherent sports strategy and the infrastructure to support one, according to Chris Cochrane, chief strategy officer at the programmatic ad agency Plug Media.

It could solve those problems by acquiring a sports platform like DAZN, Cochrane said, addressing both problems at once by delivering rights, relationships, and a ready-made audience of sports subscribers. 

“Netflix still lacks a consistent sports strategy,” Cochrane said. “Acquiring a sports platform could give it immediate rights infrastructure and established relationships in the sports ecosystem.”

Alan Wolk, a media analyst and cofounder of TVREV, makes a similar case for the company to acquire NBCU, noting that its streaming service Peacock would come bundled with substantial sports rights, including the NFL, the Olympics, the Premier League, supercharging Netflix’s live ambitions overnight. 

The streaming math, he argues, increasingly favors whoever can claim the last monocultural event. 

“Sports,” he said, “is the last bastion of monoculture.”

A gaming publisher

Netflix has been trying to crack gaming for years, with middling results. Its mobile gaming library has grown but has failed to meaningfully move the needle. 

The problem is that Netflix keeps flirting with complicated business models without committing to them, according to media analyst and Parqor founder Andrew Rosen. Gaming, he notes, is fundamentally a community product, one that depends on ads, in-app purchases, and social features that Netflix’s platform doesn’t support.

The solution, several experts suggest, is to stop building and start buying. 

Cochrane pointed to EA or Ubisoft as candidates that would instantly deliver premium IP and a new content pipeline, while media strategist Evan Shapiro made the case for Take-Two or Roblox. 

“Netflix has been failing in gaming for years,” Shapiro said. “Roblox has never been profitable. And it is chock full of great IP.” 

According to both analysts, gaming engagement is a different animal than video engagement, and Netflix needs both.

Lionsgate

More than one expert landed independently on Lionsgate as the most practical near-term target, and the math is hard to argue with, as the studio could conceivably be acquired for roughly what Netflix just pocketed in break-up fees. 

“John Wick alone might be worth it,” Shapiro said.

Lionsgate brings the Hunger Games and Twilight franchises, as well as a clutch of FAST channels. Its streaming service Starz also carries a library of content not dissimilar to that of WBD, including DC Comics properties like Lucifer, which drive an outsized share of viewing, according to Rosen. 

Indeed, if Netflix loses access to WBD’s library following its Paramount acquisition, Lionsgate starts to look less like an opportunistic buy and more like a necessity.

ITV

The British broadcaster might not be the flashiest acquisition target on this list, but Shapiro makes a pointed case for it. 

ITV would give Netflix a meaningful foothold in the UK market, where its engagement has, by some measures, plateaued. It would also, not incidentally, keep ITV out of Comcast’s hands. 

Stealing ITV away from Comcast has a double-edged benefit, according to Shapiro: it nets inventory in a key international market and blocks it from a competitor. 

Plus, non-fiction formats travel well regardless of where they’re produced, according to Core Advisors partner Blake Saunders.

“The location of a production company for unscripted content doesn’t really matter,” Saunders said.

Spotify

The wildcard that multiple sources raised independently, as well as the one that generated the most enthusiasm, is Spotify. 

The two companies are already deepening their relationship through a podcast partnership, and the strategic logic is genuinely compelling, as combining them would create a massive subscription entertainment platform that spans video, audio, and live content. 

“It would give Netflix immediate scale and open up a much broader advertising proposition,” Cochrane said. 

There are, of course, substantial barriers. 

Spotify stock is at an all-time high, Daniel Ek maintains founder control, and the deal would invite regulatory scrutiny. 

But the audio-video convergence story is real, according to LightShed Ventures’ partner Rich Greenfield. And Rosen pointed to a specific tactical advantage, in that Netflix’s homepage creates far less friction for video podcasts than Spotify’s does, which could matter enormously as that format continues to grow.

Roku

Gruene raised one target—Roku—that the others largely passed over, a pitch less about content and more about what Netflix still lacks on the business side. 

Advertising has become an increasingly important part of Netflix’s revenue mix, and Roku is an adtech powerhouse with deep roots in connected TV. 

“Netflix is good at making their own content,” Gruene said. “But I’m always interested in what they don’t have that would drive better revenue.” 

Acquiring Roku would hand Netflix a mature advertising infrastructure and a massive distribution platform, without adding a single writer or showrunner to the payroll.

Nothing

The contrarian position had its merits, articulated most forcefully by Gruene and Greenfield. 

Netflix demonstrated remarkable discipline by walking away from a deal that many believe would have burdened the company with debt, bureaucracy, and a library of diminishing assets. The company should savor its savvy, according to Gruene.

“Take the money and run,” she said. “They just walked away with $3 billion: do something with it that’s proprietary, that you can use to block from others, that customers will stick with you for.”

Greenfield, for his part, thinks the acquisition landscape is simply too lumpy to make a compelling case for anything. Netflix should wait and watch the rest of the industry atomize itself into more digestible pieces, then pounce when the timing is right, according to Greenfield. 

“It’s far more likely that Netflix buys nothing and waits to be opportunistic,” he said.

That strategy sounds a lot like what Netflix was doing in the months leading up to its near-purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery. The war room, it seems, never really closes.

Talking Heds

Events Time (Exclusive): The legacy news brand Time has nearly completed that most modern of digital media pivots: After years of gradual transformation, it has now become an events company. Chief strategy officer Dan Macsai told me that Time is on pace to generate 50% of its 2026 revenue from events alone, up from 23% in 2023. Within Time’s advertising business specifically, events make up nearly 80% of its revenue. This positions Time amid a growing cohort of publishers, including Semafor, whose primary business is an in-person extension their brand, a remarkable trend for an industry that, not even a decade ago, mostly treated the events business as an afterthought.

Bag Bunny (Exclusive): The white smoke has risen from the Playboy Mansion. On Tuesday, the iconic publisher appointed media veteran Phillip Picardi as its new chief brand officer and editor in chief. Picardi, who joins the company following a stint at Weight Watchers, is no stranger to the media business. In his first turn in the editorial world, he repositioned Teen Vogue as an arbiter of the Gen Z zeitgeist, founded the queer-focused publication them at Condé Nast, and served as editor in chief of Out Magazine. Just last week, Playboy also hired revenue executive David Miller from National Geographic. Taken together, the two hires suggest a new chapter at the Bunny is afoot.

Hustle at Bustle (Exclusive): Bustle Digital Group, which owns the editorial brands Bustle, Nylon, and W Magazine among others, plans to name Avi Zimak as its chief commercial officer on Thursday. As part of the move, the company will also be promoting Amber Estabrook to publisher of W and chief business officer of prestige revenue and partnerships. Zimak, who has previously led revenue at both The Arena Group and New York Magazine, will help BDG continue its project of transforming from a network of text-based websites into a social, creator and events-centric media operation. The company endured a lot of critical coverage as it underwent that remodel—some from yours truly—but it appears to have found its footing and now serves as a blueprint for how lifestyle media can adapt to the distributed era.

IAB on AI: Remember the IAB Tech Lab? The standard-setting body for digital advertising fell off my radar after Google reversed course on its plan to deprecate third-party cookies, news that was itself quickly overshadowed by the paradigm shift posed to the open web by answer engines. On Wednesday, though, it unveiled its Content Monetization Protocol Specification, i.e. a proposed framework for how publishers and AI firms might operate content marketplaces. The IAB Tech Lab has always had the unenviable job of trying to coordinate publishers into unified action, but such a Sisyphean task has arguably never been more necessary. The Tech Lab might have missed its hero moment with the cookie apocalypse that wasn’t, but maybe this could be its chance?

Fast Times at People Inc.: On Tuesday, I hosted a fireside panel with People Inc. chief executive Neil Vogel at the Marketecture Live event in Chelsea. Despite People Inc. (formerly known as Dotdash Meredith) being nearly synonymous with the now-shrinking open web, People Inc. has managed nine straight quarters of growth. When I asked Neil about how the company compensates for the declining Google Search traffic, he told me 40% of its business is growing—primarily licensing, Apple News+, and content syndication—while 60% is flat or declining. He also railed against Google, which continues to use one crawler for both search indexing and Gemini training, making it impossible for publishers to opt out of the latter and still show up in the former.

Gang Green: The CEO of The Trade Desk, Jeff Green, has recently posted public excoriations of both ADWEEK and AdExchanger, claiming that both outlets have been too critical of the $12.8 billion company he founded. In his defense, Green has put his money where his mouth is: On March 6, he bought $150 million of Trade Desk stock, a massive vote of confidence in the direction of the firm. But as someone who has covered The Trade Desk often in recent years, and whose colleagues have covered it doggedly (and accurately) in recent months, I am beyond proud of our coverage and frankly quite tickled to see its impact. 

Social Media Week Returns: In just a few weeks, ADWEEK will once again be hosting Social Media Week, by far the coolest event in our portfolio and one whose insights can legitimately help make or break your brand. I will be on-site, moderating panels and trying not to look washed, and would love to see you there. So join ADWEEK, on April 14 – 16 in New York, to tap into the cutting-edge tactics powering social for the top brands, media outlets, agencies, and creators in the world. Click here to learn more.

Pulled Quotes

“Yesterday, I announced that this week I made the biggest purchase of my life.”
Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green, sharing why he bought $150 million of TTD stock
READ MORE

“The idea that what’s going to happen in the world only matters because of how it impacts stock prices is a bit bizarre to me.”
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, on why prediction markets are more useful than stock markets
READ MORE

“I want to build the greatest collective of non-fiction writers in the English speaking world.”
The Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, on the publisher’s profitable growth
READ MORE

“I could retire. But if I did, I’d be bored.”
Twenty-year-old Roblox millionaire Chrollo, who earns eight figures a year from a game he developed on the platform
READ MORE

Quote/Unquote

Lisa Hughes is the publisher and CEO of The Philadelphia Inquirer, which she joined in 2020 following a multiyear tenure as publisher and chief business officer of The New Yorker. 

Under Hughes, The Inquirer has managed a methodical turnaround, generating a year-over-year revenue increase last year for the first time since 2004. The success is partially the result of a transformative investment the publisher received in 2015 from the philanthropist H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, which provided the newsroom with the governance structure and resources it needed to retool itself for the digital era.

Now, with 70% of its revenue coming from subscribers, The Inquirer is set to embark on a number of growth initiatives this summer, hiring reporters to join its 200-person newsroom, expanding into new geographies, bulking up its events portfolio, and investing in lifestyle coverage.

This interview has been edited.

Mark Stenberg: The Inquirer was recently profiled for its use of artificial intelligence to power hyper-local reporting. How has that worked?

Lisa Hughes: Last year, financed by philanthropic backing, we launched newsletters in four markets: Lower Merion, Cherry Hill, Chester County, and Cherry Hill. In each, we use a proprietary tool called Scribe that listens to and transcribes public meetings, then categorizes, scores, and ranks those notes by newsworthiness. The newsletters, which now have around 50,000 subscribers, improved subscriber growth and retention by 2% to 5% in each market and have generated higher clickthrough rate than other newsletters. It has been so successful that we are launching 10 more this year and 10 more next year.

Mark: What is it about The Inquirer’s ownership structure that has enabled these kinds of breakthroughs?

Lisa: In 2015, we were bought out of bankruptcy by Gerry Lenfest, who established the Lenfest Institute for Journalism as our nonprofit owner and created a tax structure that created a for-profit Inquirer with a separate board. His ownership allowed The Inquirer to transform from a legacy print shop to a modern multiplatform news organization.

Mark: You are now expanding coverage, both by geography and vertical—a rare sight in local news.

Lisa: In June we are expanding into South Jersey, hiring between four to six new reporters to staff that effort. We are also expanding our weekend coverage, an initiative funded by philanthropy. If you visit our website on the weekend you will see a different design format, as well as new features like Field Trips, Perfect Philly Day, and the breakout hit How I Bought This House. 

Mark: How is the company faring financially?

Lisa: Seventy percent of our revenue comes from a mix of digital and print subscribers, 19% from advertising, 5% from syndication, and 6% from philanthropy. We used to be a business led by advertising revenue, which is still important to us but now plays a smaller role. Overall, the pie has shrunk, but that transformation has enabled us to become a consumer-driven business.

Mark: How are things pacing for this year?

Lisa: We’re on track this year to reach our goals, but it didn’t hurt that last February the Eagles won the Super Bowl. That is great for business, but only if you have a plan in place to capitalize on it, which we did.

The Trade Desk is testing whether advertisers can build campaigns on its platform using generative AI.

Speaking at Marketecture Live in New York City on Wednesday, CEO Jeff Green said the company is running a closed beta that allows some advertisers to create campaigns through Anthropic’s Claude—offering an early glimpse at how the company is exploring large language models to potentially reshape programmatic ad buying. Green stopped short of sharing further details about the test.

The effort follows The Trade Desk’s earnings last month, when Green hinted the company plans to launch an agentic AI framework for partners in 2026. At the panel, he argued programmatic advertising is especially well suited to automation given the scale and speed of campaign decisions.

“I don’t think that there is an industry in the world that is more conducive to AI than programmatic advertising,” Green said during a panel with Marketecture Media founder Ari Paparo. “We are looking at 20 million ad impression opportunities every single second, representing millions of ad campaigns and billions of users on the other side—and we have 10 milliseconds or less.”

Ad companies are in an arms race to deploy AI agents that could shake off old habits on building and managing campaigns. Rivals such as Amazon have already begun opening parts of their ad tech stack to AI agents, ADWEEK previously reported.

The Trade Desk’s efforts with Claude follow Green’s recent remarks suggesting that the company would gain access to chatbot inventory. While he did not confirm whether that includes AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, he also declined to comment on the company’s reported talks with OpenAI.

Instead, he suggested that the economics of generative AI will push many companies toward advertising as they search for sustainable revenue models.

“All of the AI companies have a serious problem,” Green said. “Their capex and valuations are massive, and they have really high expectations on the way that they’re going to make money.”

At the heart of the discussion was Amazon’s DSP offering. Green reiterated a view that has stirred debate across ad tech: that Amazon may eventually step back from operating a demand-side platform for the open internet.

The reason, he argued, is antitrust risk. Green pointed to Google’s ongoing regulatory battles as a cautionary tail, suggesting the company’s participation in open web ad tech has been the source of most of its legal troubles. Amazon, he added, has even more at stake because its advertising business intersects with retail, cloud infrastructure, and streaming video.

“It would be a strategic mistake for Amazon,” Green said. “Their role in the open internet will be shorter than Google’s, because of the macro impact on their business.” 

Green also pointed to retail media as a major area of opportunity for programmatic platforms—even though The Trade Desk has yet to operate product listing ads at scale, he said. When pressed about whether agency groups such as Dentsu and WPP had moved away from OpenPath—a development previously reported by ADWEEK—Green declined to comment.