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JOE MANDESE

Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.

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  • Why Nielsen Keeps Publishing 'The Gouge' by Joe Mandese (Planning & Buying Insider on 08/18/2026)

    @Jack Wakshlag: Which explains why the Guage is publishing fantasy research showing huge gains and viewing to digital alternatives (YouTube, streamers), at least if you believe the ARF's DASH estimates vs. Nielsen's Gauge so far.

  • Why Nielsen Keeps Publishing 'The Gouge' by Joe Mandese (Planning & Buying Insider on 08/18/2026)

    @Joshua Chasin: You are absolutely right, but the real question is who it is marketing for?By willfully continuing to publish data for months -- generating hundreds of trade and consumer press stories citing its data -- even though it already acknowledged the data is incorrect and will be rebooted this fall, Nielsen appears to be perpetuating false data to market the dominance of streaming vs. linear/cable TV during the very same months billions of ad dollars are being spent across those TV/streaming platforms/networks/channels. That's what the column is about.Or maybe someone more knowledgeable than me has a better answer?

  • Unpacking The Lawsuits Opposing Paramount-WBD Merger by Adam Buckman (TVBlog on 07/29/2026)

    I hearby oppose the points brought up in this "TVBlog" column starting with the author's point that the threat to fair pricing is just about cable TV subscriptions. It's not. It's about the concentration of market power for the most premium content supplying all forms of television, streaming and theatrical channels -- and yes, cable TV distribution too.While this column focuses only on the state AG suits opposing the merger, there was another suit covered by MediaPost -- the Writers Guild of America's -- which is worth reading to understand the real concentration of media marketplace power that will result from the merger.https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/416527/writers-union-sues-to-block-paramount-wb-merger.htmlThe WGA suit reveals that the merged company will control more than a third of all WGA affiliated TV and film content.Even during Hollywood's pre-television Golden Years when MGM was the dominant studio, there was far less concentration of market power. There were the "Big 5" studios (MGM, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. and RKO Radio Pictures) and the lesser "Little 3" (Universal, Columbia and United Artists), but fewer meaningful independent studios.The real impact on "fair pricing" won't be on cable TV subscriptions -- which currently account for only about 20% of TV viewing, according to Nielsen -- but on the entire supply chain of TV, streaming and theatrical content... From the front-end of what writers get paid to the back-end of what consumers pay to stream, rent, buy TV/video/movie content.And we won't know the exact economic impact of that until years after the Paramount/WBD merger is completed.Looking beyond this deal, it will create a legal precedent -- and likely a marketplace impetus -- for further consolidation among other studios in order to compete with a dominant PWBD.There are many other fair pricing reasons to oppose this deal, but the most important one opposed by "Red, White & Blog" is the very same one this "TVBlog" column glosses over: the concentration of television news content -- including CNN -- in the hands of a company that has already destroyed much of the integrity of CBS News, and will likely do the same for CNN.The only positive thing I can say about Paramount is that they still let "The Daily Show" do its thing, albeit under the banner of news parody. But under Paramount's enhanced reign it could actually live up to its tongue-in-cheek tagline: "The Most Important News Show... Ever!"On that note, I highly recommend watching two segments from Monday's telecast, if you haven't seen them already:https://youtu.be/ZF_tDPRNV5U?si=XHCHSBWUe1Kos5hGhttps://youtu.be/wJiBtLAzKPs?si=sjzw5MqvG8q-_8NH

  • How Do You Top $100B In Ad Revenue In Less Than 4 Years? Just Ask ChatGPT by Joe Mandese (Media 3.0 on 07/10/2026)

    @Joel Rubinson: Congratulations.

  • Made For Bill Duggan by Joe Mandese (Planning & Buying Insider on 05/08/2026)

    @Geoffrey Precourt: Full disclosure, everything I know about being an ad industry journalist I learned from you.

  • I've Got 47 Problems But 86 Ain't One by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 04/29/2026)

    @Adam Buckman: Doh! Great catch. Hope there's a TVBlog in the future about that. Lift the Cone of Silence, please. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Adams#/media/File:DonAdams.jpg

  • I've Got 47 Problems But 86 Ain't One by Joe Mandese (Red, White & Blog on 04/29/2026)

    @Dan C. from MS Entertainment: You're conveniently ignoring my "for illustration purposes only" disclaimer on Gemini's (not my) analysis. I wouldn't put statistical significance in that. As I noted there has been a conflation between the terms "86" and the lesser known/used mobster term "8 miles out 6 feet under." Perhaps my most important points were about "gaslighting" and "Mandela Effects" and the collective misremembering and twisting of reality that happens when someone like Donald Trump is using the powers of his office to distort the meaning of things, including a pop culture term like "86." It clearlly has never been meant to "kill" someone, but to get rid of someone. The real meaning of words is about the context of who, what, when, where and why people use them. If a mob hit man were using the term "86," I'd grant the meaning was to execute someone. If a top career law enforcement official who happens to be a president's political rival is using it, I believe the context was to remove that president from office. #seashells

  • New Programmatic 'Transparency' Initiative Excludes Advertisers by Joe Mandese (Planning & Buying Insider on 04/21/2026)

    @Anthony Katsur from IAB Tech Lab: Thanks for the update. Interesting you didn't say that when you announced it and only after MediaPost pointed it out. Your release reads like a supply-side and agency-side intiative with the only reference to advertisers being a quote from an agency executive stating agencies "are responsible for navigating a massive supply chain on behalf of advertisers" -- coming years after advertisers undertook for themselves (see above). Feels like catch up, but others can read for themselves @ https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/iab-tech-lab-launches-industry-council-to-address-transparency-in-200b-us-programmatic-ad-market-302748778.html

  • Nielsen: Move Along, Nothing To See Here (*) by Joe Mandese (Planning & Buying Insider on 04/14/2026)

    @Ed Papazian: Also for your knowledge: https://www.wsj.com/cmo-today/nbcuniversal-says-nielsen-devalues-media-companies-with-inaccurate-metrics-d2490068

  • Nielsen: Move Along, Nothing To See Here (*) by Joe Mandese (Planning & Buying Insider on 04/14/2026)

    @Ed Papazian: For your knowledge... https://mediaratingcouncil.org/sites/default/files/News/MRC%20Releases%20Update%20on%20the%20MRC-Accredited%20Nielsen%20National%20Big%20Data%20%2B%20Panel%20Television%20Service.pdf

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