With Skydance Corp. starting up yesterday, the
Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery drama is over. But the moves on the dance floor continue.
The company is projected to have a leading TV market share in terms of U.S. television advertising of
21% -- topping Walt Disney and Comcast Corp. -- according to estimates from Madison & Wall.
But at the same time, the overall television ad marketplace is stagnant. You may wonder --
isn’t streaming/CTV still a rapidly growing business?
Sure, but as many analysts remind us, streaming/CTV advertising revenues are just replacing traditional TV advertising revenue,
which has been sinking.
The positives are that TV/streaming, big-screen content and advertising is still more desirable to major brands. YouTube and other competitors continue to recognize
this and make big-screen advertising gains.
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The question is how companies -- including Skydance, Disney, Comcast and all the rest -- pull more digital-first brands into the mix. Or whether
they can find a way for major brands to increase their budgets.
What about competitors? Madison & Wall notes that advertising on YouTube, social media video, commerce/retail media, and
performance media channels continue to see soaring growth, and wonders whether Skydance can build more ad technology to compete with the broader media world in the U.S. and globally.
The
positive for Skydance is that it will have an even larger share when it comes to the national TV U.S. ad market -- at 28%. That will mean a strong position when it comes to the upfront TV ad market.
All this will mean a better negotiating position in acquiring high-profile viewing TV content, like the NFL.
Let’s not forget that Skydance’s $111 billion merger will result in a
monstrous $80 billion debt. So spending big on content and high-profile sports won’t be easy.
The company will need to dance around much of this. Maybe that was the partial idea for the corporate name: Have a light and airy theme -- amid a hardcore competitive media world.