META Meta Platforms Inc

By Mike Shields 

DUOPOLY MONEY: Times are good in the digital ad business -- at least for the top 85%. The U.S. digital advertising market will surge by 16% this year to $83 billion, largely driven by the continued dominance of Facebook and Google , eMarketer reports. By some estimates, the two companies take in upward of 85 cents on every new dollar spent in the industry, with the rest of the business fighting over the remaining 15-cent scraps. Part of the reason for Facebook's ever-expanding clout is that it has seen video consumption, and video advertising on its platform, and its subsidiary Instagram explode of late, CMO Today reports. Outside of the Google/Facebook family, Snapchat ad revenue is predicted to surge by 158% to $770 million, a terrific number, but still relatively tiny as a percentage of overall spending. It will take a while before Snapchat makes the big two nervous. Meanwhile, Twitter's fortunes are going in the opposite direction, as eMarketer says ad revenue there is actually set to decline 4.7% this year. If a global platform like Twitter is losing to the duopoly, what hope does the average web publisher have?

POST MEDIA: Can a media company, let alone a newspaper company, really morph into an enterprise tech provider? Maybe if its owner is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Ever since Mr. Bezos acquired the venerable Washington Post in 2013, besides helping revive the company's journalistic fortunes by pushing more innovative business and publishing practices, he has the company talking up its ambitions in ad tech. Specifically, the Post wants to build digital ad products and tools it can sell to other publishers. It's been easy to roll one's eyes at this prospect, as companies from Microsoft to AOL to Yahoo -- companies with bigger digital scale and tech bona fides -- have struggled on this front. But Monday, in an Amazon-esque move, the Post said it was licensing Arc Publishing, its digital content management suite of tools, to Tronc -- publisher of the Los Angeles Times and Orlando Sentinel, CMO Today reports. Sure, perhaps landing the beleaguered Tronc as a partner isn't as large a victory as inking a deal with the New York Times or BuzzFeed. Still, it's impressive considering Mr. Bezos's history of disruption and relentlessness.

JWT LIMBO: It's been a year since Erin Johnson, J. Walter Thompson's chief communications officer, filed the now-infamous lawsuit accusing the ad agency's chief executive, Gustavo Martinez, of racist and sexist behavior. Mr. Martinez resigned, and a prolonged period of soul searching and self-flagellation for the ad industry followed regarding its record on diversity and female leadership. Campaign U.S. takes a deep look at the fallout, how it's cast a pall over the agency's operations. WPP, which owns JWT, has refused to settle the case. Meanwhile, Ms. Thompson is working at the agency in a limited capacity, while Mr. Martinez has been a consultant for WPP in Spain and Latin America. All the while, JWT has had to try to operate as usual and win new accounts, with mixed results, Campaign reports. The ad industry has tried to move on, hiring more women in leadership roles and making improved diversity a cause at seemingly every conference and gathering. But until the JWT case has resolution, it will be tough to move on.

OLDIES RADIO: Can Pandora -- once the most innovative form of digital-radio consumption, with its blend of algorithm-driven playlist and elements of consumer choice -- compete in a radio world increasingly driven by Spotify and its on-demand model? This week marks the debut of Pandora Premium, the company's $10-a-month subscription product that is essentially an answer to Spotify's beloved listen-to-whatever-you-want-whenever offering. Pandora is betting that even with more than 100 million people paying for music subscriptions, there is a ton of head space in the streaming music market, the Verge reports. Many people don't want to just search for any one of 30 million songs at a given moment, CEO Tim Westergren argues. "For most people that's just overwhelming." Pandora is betting on its personalization and programming chops as appealing to a new breed of music subscriber. The challenge for Pandora seems to be in a media sector so driven by currency, the company's model already feels like an "older" way of consuming content -- and there aren't many revival tours in digital media.

Elsewhere

Once Verizon completes its acquisition of Yahoo, Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer is set to receive a $23 million golden parachute. [ WSJ]

Fox Business Network has been on a recent winning ratings streak over rival CNBC. [ BuzzFeed]

Ketchup brand Heinz is planning to run a series of print and billboard ads using the exact "Pass the Heinz" creative message pitched by the fictional executive Don Draper a few years ago on the series "Mad Men." [ Adweek]

Amazon's Twitch service, where millions of people stream footage of other people playing videogames, plans to stream 831 episodes of the show "Power Rangers" over the next 17 days. [ Business Insider].

As the fledgling Drone Racing League gears up for a second season, which will broadcast in 75 countries including via ESPN in the Americas and Sky Sports in the U.K., some competitors are landing six-figure contracts. [ CNBC]

Whoever replaces recently fired U.S. attorney Preet Bharara will inherit a continuing investigation of Fox News, as a federal grand jury is expected to convene in Mr. Bharara's former district soon to hear testimony from at least two witnesses in that case. One candidate who has emerged as a possible successor is Marc L. Mukasey, who previously represented former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. Fox didn't have any comment Monday, according to NYT, but said last month that it plans to fully cooperate with all inquiries. [ New York Times]

EBay is looking to ramp up its ad business and keep more shoppers on its own site rather than sending them elsewhere on the web. [ Recode]

YouTube has rolled out Uptime, an experimental app that lets people stream content at the same time from different locations. [ VideoInk]

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 14, 2017 07:59 ET (11:59 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.