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Marketing Brew

Jasmine Sheena

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LinkedIn logo on an overlapping TV and phone screen

LinkedIn debuts CTV ads and more at NYC marketing summit 

The networking juggernaut is partnering with NBCUniversal on CTV ads.

Ryan Barwick

A gif of the Narrator in Fight Club watching TV

More than half of US TV watchers are cordless, according to report

Streaming continues to take up larger percentages of total time spent watching TV, according to the Video Advertising Bureau. 

'Suits' stars Gabriel Macht and Patrick J. Adams appear in an ad for T-Mobile

Why brands like T-Mobile and e.l.f love ‘Suits’ 

The legal drama’s resurgence on Netflix has won it new fans—and brand interest. 

A TV with a play button on it denoting TV & streaming

TV & Streaming

The Federal Communications Commission is in the process of reviewing a cap prohibiting entities from owning broadcast TV stations that reach more than 39% of the national TV audience.

Some experts argue that a repeal of the cap, which was passed by Congress in 2003, could intensify consolidation and control over the media landscape, but others, including industry trade groups like the NAB, claim the rule could help broadcasters modernize in a landscape dominated by streaming.

“This should have been done five to 10 years ago,” Steven Schiffman, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University who specializes in media studies and digital media, said. “Broadcasters definitely have a place in the media landscape. But…broadcasters’ role and relevance within the media ecosystem, certainly in the United States, is significantly lower and less relevant than it was 10 years ago.”

The comment period on the proposal runs through the month of August.

 The cap was put in place to prevent networks from wielding disproportionate influence on viewers, according to Schiffman. Today, in a media landscape where broadcast is less relevant, he said, there are still major broadcasters like Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS, but many consumers find news or content through social media or streaming.

Executives in broadcast, according to Schiffman, might argue that lifting the cap could help make broadcast, which has seen regular declines, more relevant and could position networks to capture younger viewers, who generally stream more.

Reversing or increasing the cap could also help broadcasters gain critical ad revenue, Rick Kaplan, chief legal officer for the trade association the National Association of Broadcasters, told Marketing Brew.

Over the years, broadcasters have lost revenue to platforms like Google and Facebook at the same time that TV advertising has declined as consumers cut cords. Pay TV and linear TV advertising was down from $146.9 billion in 2020 to $126.1 billion in 2024, according to data released last month by the consulting firm PwC. In contrast, OTT ad-supported tiers generated $22.8 billion in the US in 2024, a number that is expected to grow to $37.3 billion by 2029.

“We are now, as I think everyone realizes, competing with so many sources that are not just even national, but really global,” Kaplan said. “Especially with the advent of streaming, it's just untenable to keep going with regulations that just only target over-the-air broadcasters.”

In July, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit struck down an FCC order that stated that an entity can’t own more than one of the top four TV stations in a specific market in terms of audience share.

 Ad dollars aside, a potential cap reversal could have political implications. In 2003, when the cap was set, the 39% figure represented a compromise between mostly Democratic lawmakers, who advocated for a 35% cap, and Republican lawmakers, many of whom had pushed for a 45% cap.

Raising the cap further could pave the way for influential figures like billionaires to consolidate and control more media, according to Melissa Ryan, CEO and founding partner of media firm Inviolable.

Even without a cap reversal, that’s already happening, she said, citing Jeff Bezos’ and Elon Musk’s respective purchases of the Washington Post and X, as well as the Skydance-Paramount merger involving billionaire Larry Ellison and his son, Skydance CEO David Ellison, as just a few examples. She also mentioned Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has consolidated local news stations in recent years and has been 

accused of spreading right-wing disinformation

“It just allows for even more of a trend that we are already seeing playing [out] across legacy media and social media,” Ryan said.

A potential change to the ownership cap comes at a time when media and advertising are being affected by the more mainstream conservative influence of the second Trump administration, Ryan said.

“During the first Trump administration, it felt like the popular culture was broadly out of alignment with where the Trump coalition was, and certainly you saw that in the kinds of advertising you saw and the way companies were reacting,” she said. “Now where we’re at, we’re in a very different place culturally. I would say that the right has, if not cultural dominance, a lot more impact and influence on the culture.”

Amid the changing domestic landscape, conservative groups rallied together in May to send FCC chairman Brendan Carr, appointed by President Trump, a letter declaring support for eliminating ownership rules. Many Republicans are often in favor of federal deregulation, and broadcast stations that favor conservative views could stand to gain ground, potentially negotiating deals with more established broadcasters if the cap is reversed, 

Thanks to the June confirmation of FCC commissioner Olivia Trusty, the FCC, which is tasked with developing rules to implement laws passed by Congress, now has a conservative majority.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr testifies in a hearing

How the FCC’s potential overhaul of a 20-year-old rule could affect TV advertising

The commission may change a rule that stops entities from owning TV stations that can reach more than 39% of the national audience.

Ever made fun of a video online? It very well could have been one from Dhar Mann Studios.

The video entertainment company, which is named after its founder, has been lampooned online for its sometimes 

 videos showing characters in different situations facing life lessons. One 21-minute video from earlier this year, which is tagged as an #inspirational #shortfilm on YouTube, depicts a toxic boyfriend apparently learning how to be okay with his girlfriend dressing how she wants. Cringe aside, the YouTube channel has grown to have just shy of 26 million subscribers.

In the past year, DMS has undergone something of an internal makeover. In September, the company hired Sean Atkins, a Discovery and MTV alum, to serve as CEO; earlier this year, more industry heavyweights came aboard to help run the show, including Toni Gray, a MrBeast and Fremantle vet, who joined as head of production.

The hires are part of a broader move from DMS to scale at a moment where YouTube and creators are aiming to get footholds in high-production entertainment.

“Our goal is to be the No. 1 creator of positive content in the world,” Atkins told Marketing Brew.

Atkins says that DMS is looking to enter a new chapter, expanding its content from its version of inspirational content into different genres, including horror. It’s also considering new formats, such as vertical videos and podcasts, as well as additional distribution methods: DMS debuted a FAST channel partnership with Samsung TV Plus in May.

“As our audience wants more experiences, wants more content, how do we super-serve that need in what format? What genre might that be?” he said.

While DMS plans to continue emphasizing positivity and universal human themes, Atkins said, there will likely be more experimentation done on DMS’s channels with new types of content throughout the end of the year.

The play is to further personalize content for its audience across platforms; Dhar Mann and DMS have said its audience is roughly 145 million followers. (Across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, accounts for Dhar Mann and Dhar Mann Studios have more than 124 million followers.) The studio puts out a breakneck five scripted episodes each week, and it already tailors its content to some degree depending on the platform that content is distributed on. For example, its Facebook content tends to be more “soapy,” which Atkins said is geared toward moms, while its TikTok videos often feature clips geared toward teens.

The company makes content primarily for YouTube and Facebook, he said, but clips are shared across social platforms to generate audience interest.

“We have two platform-focused studios that make content primarily for that premiere on that platform, and then it gets cross-pollinated across all the other platforms,” Atkins said. “Something that is made for YouTube will ultimately also have a life on Facebook and Snapchat and TikTok and Spotify and all that.”

Right now, DMS relies on organic advertising to distribute the videos it makes, and Atkins said the company does buy paid ads for “experimentation.” Relying on the company’s large audience can benefit algorithmic distribution on various platforms.

Atkins likened DMS’s approach to those of the cable networks he previously worked at.

“It’s not that MTV or Discovery wouldn’t do paid media, but the majority of the lift was done on on-air promotion to get the audience to view something,” he said. “It’s the same thing for most digital creators.”

As it grows, DMS is exploring branded content, and Atkins said that Dhar Mann himself attended Cannes Lions for the first time this year. As it considers more brand work, Atkins said the aim is to ink select, long-term brand partnerships that make sense for the brand’s audience.

Part of DMS’s planned growth spurt isn’t just hiring execs and branching into branded content. The company is also exploring the possibility to acquire other creator-led businesses, Atkins said. To that end, he told us, it’s working with the talent agency CAA and has plans to work with the company’s merchant bank, CAA Evolution, as a way to potentially facilitate acquisitions.

As it evaluates potential acquisition targets, DMS execs are evaluating creators’ interest in scaling as well as their existing audience overlap with that of DMS. Eventually, Atkins would like DMS’s original and acquired channels to “all speak to a Middle America.”

YouTube creator and entrepreneur Dhar Mann at YouTube's Brandcast event in 2025

Dhar Mann Studios is just one creator outpost coming for Hollywood

The studio, once lampooned online for cringey output, is laying the groundwork for more ambitious projects.

YouTube has a little surprise for NFL fans tuning into this weekend’s New York Giants vs. Buffalo Bills game on Saturday. And like most good surprises, it involves cats.

On Saturday during the preseason football game, the streamer will run a 30-second ad called “Dueling Cats” featuring a nod to the Keyboard Cat meme that, according to KnowYourMeme, first went viral around 2009 on—where else?—YouTube.

The ad promotes YouTube’s upcoming stream of a live NFL game, the Sept. 5 regular season kick-off match featuring the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Los Angeles Chargers held in São Paulo, Brazil, which marks the first time YouTube will stream a live NFL game for free to consumers. The ad featuring two Keyboard Cats wearing jerseys jamming out on their respective keyboards, which hearkens back to the early days of viral memes and also serves as a throwback to YouTube’s 2023 

 when it announced a YouTube-NFL Sunday ticket partnership that first brought NFL matches to paying subscribers on the platform.

Wes Harris, YouTube’s marketing director, said the goal behind the ad is designed to communicate to audiences the first-of-its-kind stream that the Sept. 5 game will represent.

“Consumers are not conditioned to watch live NFL on YouTube, and so we really needed to make a statement and drive undeniable linkage that this is a uniquely YouTube experience,” Harris told Marketing Brew. “There’s nothing more immediately recognizable than the Keyboard Cat in terms of instantly thinking about YouTube and signaling that this is a YouTube campaign.”

The “Dueling Cats” spot, which Harris said will run on various linear TV preseason game broadcasts, marks the first phase of YouTube’s campaign and is meant to drive buzz and awareness, Harris said. The second phase, which will roll out in a few weeks, will feature more traditional promotion designed to convey who’s playing and to remind audiences to tune in on YouTube.

The campaign will run on YouTube, TV, digital, social, email, and international channels, namely on YouTube in other countries, Harris said, and on out-of-home placements in countries including Brazil.

To further promote the game, YouTube is partnering with creators, which it has done in 

, for promotion, Harris said. While the creators have been selected for the campaign, YouTube declined to share the names of the creators they were working with.

YouTube plans to put paid social dollars behind that creator content, he added, and YouTube has plans to integrate creators into the game itself.

All the efforts are in service of commemorating the gravitas of YouTube airing a live NFL game on its platform for the first time, according to Harris.

“This is a watershed moment,” he said.

YouTube’s live broadcast of the NFL game, which was first announced in May, comes amid a highly competitive sports rights space playing out between traditional broadcasters and digital streamers, who all recognize the value of large, engaged audiences that only sports regularly delivers.

This season, in addition to YouTube, NFL games will also be available to watch on Prime Video for the fourth year in a row, as well as on Peacock, Paramount+, and on Netflix. Games will also be available on Disney+ and on ESPN’s upcoming sports-centric app, also called ESPN, as part of a landmark 

 inked earlier this week between ESPN and the NFL.

"WATCH FOR FREE" is displayed over a video of the "Keyboard Cat" meme, part of "Dueling Cats" YouTube ad promoting its regular-season NFL game in September

YouTube plans preseason marketing push to promote its own NFL game get

A 30-second spot riffing on the Keyboard Cat meme promoting YouTube’s free regular season game will air during the Giants vs. Bills game Saturday.

Hulu and Disney+ are officially combining into a single standalone app Disney, CEO Bob Iger announced during the company’s Q3 earnings call Wednesday.

The combined app, which will roll out next year, comes after Disney acquired full control of Hulu from Comcast in June, and it marks the latest move from Disney to streamline its operations amid intense competition in the streaming business. It’s unclear if Hulu will remain available as a standalone app going forward.

“By creating a differentiated streaming offering, we will be providing subscribers tremendous choice, convenience, quality and enhanced personalization, while at the same time continuing to grow profitability and margins in our entertainment streaming business through expected higher engagement, lower churn, operational efficiencies, and greater advertising revenue potential,” Iger told investors.

The news comes as the company’s DTC division, which houses Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu, saw a 6% quarterly increase in revenue, along with continued subscriber growth. Core Disney+ subscribers reached 128 million in Q3, up 1.8 million from the prior quarter, and average monthly revenue per paid subscriber from Disney+’s domestic business also grew slightly, from $8.06 to $8.09.

Hulu’s subscriber base also added 800,000 subscribers, bringing subscriber total to 55.5 million in Q3; SVOD-only average revenue per subscriber increased from $12.36 to $12.40. ESPN+, meanwhile, stayed stagnant at 24.1 million subscribers, and ARPU decreased from $6.58 to $6.40.

In an earnings release, the company wrote that it expects subscribers to Disney+ and Hulu to increase by over 10 million in Q4, but Disney will, like Netflix, no longer report streaming subscriber data each quarter, said Hugh Johnston, senior EVP and CFO.

Disney’s overall revenue, which also includes its TV business and its theme-park business, of $23.7 billion, up 2% from a year ago.

As it prepares for the August 21 debut of its $29.99-a-month ESPN streaming app, ESPN is acquiring the NFL Network and NFL RedZone, as well as the NFL’s fantasy sports product, the network announced Tuesday. (As part of the deal, the NFL will get a 10% stake in ESPN.)

Thanks to the deal, Disney will bundle the NFL’s streaming service, NFL+ Premium, with ESPN and its other owned streaming properties, and ESPN will get access to an additional three NFL games each season for linear TV and streaming.

“I’ve talked about it being one of the most important steps ESPN has taken really since they went from half a season to a full season of the NFL back in 1987,” Iger said about the acquisition.

 Disney had a slew of (mostly) successful movies and TV shows in Q3. While Pixar’s kids’ flick 

 saw the company’s lowest opening weekend in history, 

 crossed the $1 billion mark at the box office. Disney has 

 coming up on its film slate. On the TV side, Disney had four of the top five streaming shows in the US in the first half of the year, according to Nielsen, including 

. In the pipeline at Disney+ are Marvel titles like 

From a content spend perspective, Disney plans to increase focus on its international markets, Johnston said.

“As we grow engagement and reduce churn in the US that presents opportunities from a marketing spend perspective, some of which can be basically re-invested into international content,” he said. “Our intent is to do that through a rifle-shot approach with…a number of markets around the world.”

Disney is also augmenting its Disney+ app homepage, with the aim of boosting engagement in markets where it’s been lagging, Iger said. That includes the addition of streams offering specific content around the clock, like an ABC News stream.

Overall, it’s focused on trying to meet viewers where they are, Iger stressed.

“We’re at a point, given the way we’re operating our businesses, where we don’t really look at being in the linear business and the streaming business,” he said. “We’re in the television business.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger holds a microphone while speaking on stage

Hulu will be fully combined into Disney+ next year, execs say

The streamlining comes as Disney prepares to unwrap its ESPN streaming app on August 21.

Kelsey Sutton

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself 

Mayte Alquicira is marketing and operations manager, loyalty, at Cinépolis Cinemas USA, a luxury theater brand. She’s also worked as the brand’s guest experience manager and supported the brand’s expansion into international markets.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? 

I help create emotional connections between moviegoers and our brand. My role is all about designing the journeys, from first visit to lifelong loyalty, that make people feel seen, valued, and excited to come back. It’s part storytelling, part strategy, and part data detective work.

Redesigning and upgrading our Cinépolis Rewards program. We took a deeply customer-centric approach grounded in data but brought to life through storytelling and emotional connection. It wasn’t just about points and perks; it was about building a loyalty experience that felt personal, rewarding, and human. The most fulfilling part? Seeing members reengage because the program finally spoke to what they actually value.

. It’s such a bold example of creative crossover: two seemingly unrelated brands coming together in a way that just works. That kind of surprise-and-delight moment is the best proof that when you understand your audience and have a smart creative team, the possibilities are endless. It’s the ultimate flex of efficient, unexpected brand synergy.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: 

I’m a certified yoga instructor! Yoga keeps me grounded and teaches me to approach challenges with curiosity and compassion. I’m currently building an online yoga studio that blends movement with mindfulness, especially for people navigating busy lives.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? 

I’m most optimistic about AI and personalization. When done well, it creates space for more relevant, thoughtful interactions that genuinely improve customer experience.

But I’m least optimistic about AI when it replaces rather than enhances the human touch. Brands risk becoming robotic and indistinguishable if they lose the heart behind the message. Efficiency shouldn’t come at the cost of emotional connection.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? 

 on Instagram. It’s a quick-hit inspiration board for marketers. I also like the podcasts 

 with Guy Raz, which features real stories of entrepreneurs and the power of brand-building, and 

 with Robbie Kellman Baxter—I’m fascinated by subscription models, and this one’s full of insights. And while not directly a marketing podcast, 

 by NPR offers an incredible lens into how audiences perceive media—a great resource for anyone in entertainment marketing.

Marketing Brew Coworking series featuring Mayte Alquicira.

Coworking with Mayte Alquicira

She’s marketing and operations manager, loyalty, Cinépolis Cinemas USA. 

A cartoon image of Kristina Monllos created by Morning Brew

Kristina Monllos

, this time with a new ad for Netflix’s 

Users of the audio app who encounter the ad can play rounds of golf to reveal Easter eggs from the Happy Gilmore universe, hear clips from the film, and access a personalized “happy” playlist.

The ad is the first time it has created a custom audio gaming experience for an advertiser. That said, it’s not a new ad unit or offering—Spotify has been creating custom experiences for advertisers since 2021. Spotify has previously created experiences for a collaboration between Coca-Cola and Oreo as well as for Amex.

The ad unit is dubbed “the stage,” Kay Hsu, global head of the creative lab at Spotify, said. “It’s an in-app branded experience. It’s usually really interactive. It’s custom-made for each brand, so each experience is very different.”

To create the game, Spotify worked with Netflix on a brief inspired by the character of Happy, and “leaned on a lot of nostalgia, obviously, to develop the design treatment,” Hsu said.

While there has been more interest in gamified ads from marketers like Disney, Amazon, and Discord, as Marketing Brew previously reported, that trend wasn’t the starting point for Spotify. That 

 is about a game made it a natural fit to gamify the ad, Hsu said. The experience was created by Spotify’s in-house team and produced by MiK Studio.

Should advertisers want their own game, that’s something Spotify is game for—Hsu said the platform is up for still more when it comes to immersive ads. “People think of Spotify as just an audio platform, but it isn’t,” she said. “It’s really immersive.”

A mock up of the game Spotify created for Netflix.

Spotify created its first audio gaming ad for Netflix’s ‘Happy Gilmore 2’

It’s the latest edition to the ad gamification trend.

Peacock is stuck in a rut, at least when it comes to subscribers: The streamer stayed flat with 41 million subscribers in Q2, the same number it reported in Q1, according to parent company Comcast’s Q2 earnings call on Thursday.

However, Peacock narrowed its losses to $101 million for the quarter, down from $348 million in the same period last year. In July, it 

 monthly subscription prices by $3 across its Premium Monthly and Premium Plus Monthly tiers. It also made up 

 of the NBCU upfront commitments in a record cycle for the company spurred by its upcoming live sports portfolio.

Revenue for the streamer grew 18% in the quarter to $1.2 billion, despite Comcast’s media division, NBCU, seeing an overall domestic advertising revenue decline of 7%. (In its earnings report, the company said that this drop was “primarily due to lower revenue at our networks, partially offset by an increase in revenue at Peacock.”) And besides Comcast’s upcoming spin-off of its cable channels into a new company called Versant, which Mike Cavanagh, Comcast’s president, said on the call would likely happen later this year or early next, there may be further change afoot at NBCU’s other media properties, he hinted.

As the consumer trend of “moving from the linear ecosystem to the streaming ecosystem continues...we’ll have the chance to rebalance various programming commitments for Peacock and NBC at large,” he said. “It’s also a set of properties and assets that is going to be extremely attractive to the consumer and very well-designed to participate in any of the possible re-bundling of and re-aggregation of streaming services.”

 Peacock has had some recent wins, like the immense viewership for Season 7 of 

 the platform’s most-streamed original season during its run, according to the company. Looking ahead, it’s got a notable sports content slate: Peacock will air NBA games starting in October. Next year it’s also got the Super Bowl, the FIFA World Cup, and the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in its arsenal. (Besides having a record upfront, NBCU notched its highest upfront sports commitment to date: Its client base was up 20% as compared to last year.)

On the studio side, Comcast’s Universal Pictures saw a win in the quarter with 

, which has grossed over $600 million at the box office. Universal also has the Jordan Peele-produced horror movie 

Overall Cavanagh sought to strike an optimistic tone about Comcast’s future on the call.

“When you look ahead now a couple of quarters down the road, after the Versant spin, we’ll then have a media business made up of NBC broadcast, Bravo, Telemundo, as well as Peacock, that are completely symbiotic, leveraging the strengths of the entertainment business,” he said. “That new NBC media segment is really strategically well-positioned to continue to compete…Having a strategy for the future that is going to serve customers in a digital way through Peacock; that wasn’t the case a mere four or five years ago.”