Media & Entertainment

The average US household was served the same podcast ad 4.76 times in Q2 2022. That quarter marked an unusual decrease in ad frequency, and as a result conversion rates went up, according to Podsights.

Meta faces painful reality: The company’s transition to a VR ecosystem could hit a wall as economic headwinds, plummeting stock value, layoffs, and hiring freezes force Zuckerberg to take a hard look at Meta’s needs.

Microsoft faces new antitrust probes in Europe: A coalition of 24 cloud providers filed a complaint against Microsoft Azure—renewing antitrust scrutiny on the company’s bundling practices, which could lead to fines and penalties.

YouTube's Music and Premium business is surging: The company has reached 80 million paying customers, despite all of the free content also available on the platform.

Roblox continues to A) lose money and B) grow daily active users: The younger-skewing gaming platform has been successful at courting brands and retailers.

“As TV takes on more elements of digital, institutional barriers around those centers of knowledge are being broken down, and TV and digital teams are being integrated,” said our analyst Evelyn Mitchell on our “Behind the Numbers: The Daily” podcast. But “institutional change takes time.”

YouTube will have more US viewers than any other over-the-top (OTT) platform, at 231.5 million. Netflix also ranks toward the top, with 169.3 million viewers, and Amazon Prime Video will boast an audience of 152.6 million.

Throttling processors risks slowing innovation: Semiconductors are a battleground in the tech cold war between the US and China, and now manufacturers are scaling down performance to comply with chip bans.

Call of Duty transcends gaming’s slump: Activision Blizzard’s shares are up following a Call of Duty sales milestone. With Microsoft’s deal still pending, competition and a recession could test its resilience.

Spanish is powering Latin America's podcast prowess: The region is now 20% ahead of Western Europe, though China looms on the horizon.

Our latest forecasts on media and tech usage in Japan offer a glimpse of what’s expected.

UBS and Julius Baer are reportedly looking into offering wealth management advice to clients via the metaverse.

Chaos reigns at Twitter: The company takes on an impulsive character as it lays off half its staff but then implores ex-employees to return. Advertisers are pausing while new features are stalled until after the midterm elections.

As political advertising grows, social media's role has evolved: More ad collars are flowing to CTV now, though campaigns are approaching influencers to support candidates.

The era of explosive growth for podcast listenership is coming to an end for much of the world.

What’s the best way to monetize a newsletter? Publishers are benefitting from the newsletter boom, but repeating mistakes from the past.

Each year, our analysts dig into media and device usage across the world. In total, we looked at 44 markets. Here’s a look at eight key insights our analysts found in the United States and Canada.

On today's episode, we discuss why Google's advertising business has slowed, the significance of YouTube's growth going in the wrong direction, and what to expect from Google in Q4 and beyond. "In Other News," we talk about Apple Search Ads' market share and why live sports may not be that big of a driver of pay TV subscriptions. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Max Willens.

China’s government goes all in on VR: An ambitious plan targets shipping 25 million VR, AR, and mixed reality headsets by 2026 as China looks to bolster its digital economy and own its future metaverse platforms.