Fox's roughly $22bn acquisition of Roku would combine Tubi and Roku, which Eric Franchi calls an obvious move that gains about 5% of the fast market.
Hightouch's roughly $1.2bn bid for LiveRamp's identity assets gave Publicis a week to respond, and Ari Paparo doubts Publicis would swap out its own identity spine.
Patrick Dolan says out-of-home set a record $9.46bn last year and digital now makes up 36% of revenue, with programmatic growing fast.
Fox to Buy Roku for $22 Billion
Funding and deals
Fox. Fox, owner of Tubi, will buy streaming platform Roku for $22bn, and Eric Franchi expects the deal not to close until 2027.
SpaceX. SpaceX went public at a $2tn valuation, making Elon Musk the first trillionaire, as a low float and retail demand lifted the stock.
Cursor. SpaceX bought AI coding application Cursor for $60bn days after its IPO, which Eric Franchi reads as a bet on AI applications.
Hightouch. Hightouch, last valued at $2.75bn, offered Publicis about $1.2bn for LiveRamp's identity assets and gave it a week to answer.
Guest interviews
Patrick Dolan, chief operating officer of the Out of Home Advertising Association of America. Out-of-home has grown for 19 straight quarters and hit a record $9.46bn last year, with digital at 36% of revenue. He says addressability brings the medium closer to how modern marketers buy, and cites Kochava research showing a two times lift when out-of-home complements other campaigns. He calls AI pervasive in buying and planning but still early, as programmatic once was.
News
Publicis and The Trade Desk end fee dispute. Publicis is again recommending The Trade Desk to clients, and no terms were disclosed. Ari Paparo says Publicis is probably one of its top two or three clients.
Walmart says Vizio lets it replace Roku. Walmart said its Vizio acquisition lets it replace Roku as the operating system in all its white-label TVs. Ari Paparo adds that Roku also faces low-cost Asian TV makers.
Hightouch and Databricks launch agentic CDPs days apart. The two announced agentic customer data platforms within about two days. Ari Paparo says it is awkward for Hightouch, which markets itself as composable, when data platforms start competing with it.
Cannes eve brings a wave of agentic ad launches. Horizon, Nexxen, DoubleVerify, Fox and Disney announced AI products, and three of the five involve buyer and seller agents. Ari Paparo calls them mostly existing products with AI added and wants case studies.
Publicis launches a travel retail media network. The network of networks includes Uber and Booking.com. Ari Paparo says The Trade Desk should build similar partnerships to gain an edge, since smaller DSPs lack the manpower.
Snap's $2,000 Spectacles take on Meta's Ray-Bans. Eric Franchi calls Spectacles Snap's answer to Meta's Ray-Ban glasses. Ari Paparo says Meta's look nicer, while online critics compare Spectacles to 1970s car dealer glasses.
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