News circulating this week that Microsoft's Xandr unit plans to ban political advertisers beginning in October is part of an ongoing reset for the category, especially for big tech players. … Read the full story by Joe Mandese

Microsoft Advertising is rebranding its products, strategy and services, combining and renaming technology from its acquisitions of Xandr and PromoteIQ and changing some of the processes across its product line. … Read the full story by Laurie Sullivan

Paramount has completed its upfront with slight "low to mid-single-percentage" volume gains, according to media agency execs. Last year, its main revenue driver, CBS TV Network, was estimated to have … Read the full story by Wayne Friedman

Fox made gains with NFL, Major League Baseball, college football and the World Cup, with growth "in both price and volume," one exec said. It has seen roughly 5% average … Read the full story by Wayne Friedman

The group's goal is to advance AI safety research, identifying best practices and standards, and facilitate information sharing among policymakers and the industry. Read the full story by Laurie Sullivan

Dentsu has launched enterprise-wide access to Microsoft Azure OpenAI technologies, enabling employees to develop solutions for clients based on AI. Global Equities Research believes Microsoft is setting the pace for … Read the full story by Laurie Sullivan

The top 20 summer shows are down 15% to 3.6 million average viewers from May 25-July 16, using Nielsen's live airing-plus-7 days of time-shifted viewing metric. The non-scripted summer period … Read the full story by Wayne Friedman

Alphabet's Q2 revenue rose 7% to $74.6 billion vs. the previous year, capitalizing on AI and cloud services. The cloud unit increased revenue by 28% vs. the year-ago quarter. Alphabet … Read the full story by Laurie Sullivan

According to a CNBC report, ESPN is talking with the biggest sports leagues about a minority stake, which could heavily impact the direction of one of the most valued TV … Read the full story by Wayne Friedman

Does "Barbie" have the right stuff to catapult into the "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" stratosphere? Read the full story by Adam Buckman

Twitter has officially rebranded to "X" after owner Elon Musk changed its iconic logo Monday, marking the latest major shift since his takeover -- part of the plan to build … Read the full story by Laurie Sullivan

When is an agency a media-buying agency or a principal? It depends on who you talk to, and how they answer that. Read the full story by Joe Mandese

Amid the "earned media" push, Warner Bros. spent a modest $10.6 million in national TV advertising, while Universal Pictures pulled out all the stops, spending $28 million in national TV … Read the full story by Wayne Friedman

"Our media model works well," said CEO Philippe Krakowsky on an earnings call Friday. The question is "Can it work better?," he added - particularly in terms of delivering value … Read the full story by Richard Whitman