Comic: Under The Big Top

Earlier this month, PubMatic shelved its Prebid integration wrapper, known as OpenWrap Web, and announced it would begin recommending Playwire as an offloading-onboarding partner for the 250-odd publishers that use its wrapper.

Agentic AI shows promise for direct deals. But if Google has its way, Buyer Direct could put an end to all sorts of agentic direct sales opportunities while they’re still in the cradle.

Streaming publishers are banking on pause ads to bolster revenue with a more user-friendly ad experience. With programmatic standardization still pending, Warner Bros. Discovery is taking a stab at advancing the capabilities behind its own pause ad formats.

Peacock hit what Comcast Co-CEO Mike Cavanagh called “meaningful profitability” for the first time in Q2, just as Comcast decided to let it leave the nest. 

A DSP refused to give ad industry watchdog Check My Ads a seat on its platform, even after both parties cosigned a master service agreement, citing concerns about “protections” for “vendor and supply partners.”

Investors didn’t bring up Google’s advertising business or ads in general once during the Q&A portion of Alphabet’s earnings report call on Wednesday.