UK August 23

The streaming wars are giving way to the screen grab. This fall through the fourth quarter, streaming services as well as TV networks appear set to be operating at full strength, having refilled their programming pipelines following last year’s in-person production hiatus. Meanwhile, audiences are expected to be returning to the office and school, which can take them away from their TVs and reestablish their pre-pandemic routines. In light of these normalizing dynamics, executives at TV networks, streaming services and advertising agencies are on the lookout to see what this period of time indicates what has and has not changed after the past year and a half of the pandemic. Read more below.

• The final four months of 2021 will offer a test to see what the new normal looks like for the future of TV as the competition for people’s attentions heightens — and flattens.
• Facebook’s server-side conversions tracking method, CAPI, shifts privacy decisions away from people in their browsers and requires identifiable data some advertisers never gave Facebook before.
• For Digiday+ members: The acquisition of Infectious Media gives Kepler Group the global reach its clients American Express, Fidelity Investments, HSBC and Deutsche Telekom are asking for.
• This year’s Olympics viewership lows could have stretched an already tight TV ad market, but NBCUniversal was able to fulfill its obligations to all Olympics advertisers within the Games.
• In light of 2020’s volatile landscape, advertisers have started to pull back ad spend on Facebook and Instagram, setting diversified media mixes into play.