INDUSTRY UPDATES

Ad Vendors / Platforms / Data

• Australian Q3 OOH revenue increased 44% YoY to 245M, down 1% from 2019. (Media Week)

• Meta will introduce more places for brands to advertise, including on the Explore page of Instagram, within Facebook Reels and on creator pages. (AdWeek)

• Mobile is driving US entertainment digital ad spend this year, growing 19% YoY. (Insider)

  

• GumGum and Frameplay will partner to deliver in-game ads, letting advertisers amplify brand messages across gaming content. (GumGum)

Awards / Festivals

• Disney's Encanto swept the 37th annual Imagen Awards but was closely matched by several wins from Hulu’s Love, Victor. (Variety)

• Ellie Goulding received her 17th BMI honor, winning the President’s Award at the 2022 BMI London Awards. (Variety)

• Matilda will open The BFI London Film Festival, marking the first time in a decade that a family-friendly film has opened the festival. (Washington Post)

Cinemas / Theatrical

• Smile earned $22M in its debut weekend across 3.6K US theaters to top the weekend chart. Nearly 70% of viewers were between ages 18-34. (THR)

• Tarzan could one day return to theaters. Sony picked up the rights to the film and wants to do a “total reinvention” of the character and intellectual property. (THR)

• US movie ticket prices have increased by 20% since 2019, for an average price of $11. (IndieWire)

• The 2022 US box office has seen $5.6B gross as of the end of September, more than in all of 2021. (Variety)

  

• Bruce Willis did not sell the rights to his face for future films, though deepfake technology was used to create the actors face in a recent commercial. (BBC)

Gambling / Casinos

• Nevada casinos will likely see another record revenue year. Statewide gaming totals are 14% above 2021’s record year of $13.4B. (CDC Gaming)

• Over 75% of Esports bettors in Asia are between the ages of 18 and 25, and about 64% of bettors bet exclusively on Esports. (Yogonet)

• About 45% of US consumers think there is too much promotion for sportsbooks, and 11% think online gaming companies care for their customers. (Casino.org)

• Star Entertainment has been declared unfit to hold a casino license in Queensland and will have to explain why it should continue to operate. (The Guardian)

Live Events / Attractions

• Nearly a third of consumers purchasing bundle tickets aren’t taking part in all the experiences offered, but they have higher overall satisfaction than those who choose à la carte experiences. (Colleen Dilen)

  

• David Blaine debuted his first-ever residency, DAVID BLAINE: IN SPADES, at the Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas. (Broadway World)

• Following the news of its departure from Broadway, Phantom of the Opera brought its first over-100% capacity score since 2017. (Playbill)

Music / Audio / Podcasts

• Apple Music released its 100 millionth song, which is more songs than YouTube, Spotify, and Amazon Music have in their catalogues. (AP)

• Though podcast listener growth has slowed YoY, it's expected that over half of digital audio listeners will be podcast subscribers next year. (Insider)

  

• Warner Music Group will collaborate with OpenSea to let select WMG artists build and extend their fan communities in Web3. (WMG)

• Spotify acquired Kinzen, a company that has helped it identify harmful content on the platform. (Reuters)

• From August '21 - August '22, 53% of tweets about music in the US were written by users under 25. (Twitter)

  

Crypto / NFT / Metaverse

• The installed base of VR and AR headsets is predicted to surge from 50M in 2022 to 100M+ in 2024. By 2027, the number of metaverse devices in use could approach 250M. (Digital TV Europe)

  

• OpenSea will let users submit bulk NFT listings and purchases, up to 30 items in a single transaction. (Coin Telegraph)

• NFT sales on OpenSea fell for a fifth consecutive month in September, nearing the same level as July 2021. (Reuters)

  

• Charlie Puth hosted his album release party in iHeartLand where he performed songs and answered fan questions. (iHeart)

OTT / Streaming

• YouTube is asking some users to upgrade to its premium tier to watch videos in 4K. It’s unclear if the change is part of a limited test or if 4K will become a premium feature. (Tech Crunch)

• It's predicted that 60% of Netflix subscribers will be on the ad-supported tier by 2027, and a quarter of its revenue will come from advertising. (Digital TV Europe)

  

• Due to the popularity of the show, Disney+ is releasing a lost episode of Bluey that it banned for jokes about flatulence. (Bloomberg)

• In its second week on the Netflix Top 10 chart, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story became Neflix's ninth most-watched English-language series of all time. (Variety)

• Peacock has reached 15M subscribers and now has an average revenue per user of $10. (THR)

• In Indonesia, Netflix and Disney+ are trailing local streamer Vidio as the most popular service in terms of consumption. (Bloomberg)

• US Fire TV users can now watch free, ad-supported content without any subscription. Amazon added new content across sports news, cooking and travel, as well as movie and TV trailers from IMDb. (Tech Crunch)

Retail / Lifestyle / Travel

• Amazon launched a new shopping portal called Amazon Access that's designed for shoppers receiving government assistance. (CNN)

• The majority of US adults are not interested in or familiar with shopping via livestream or video. About 17% have made a purchase this way, and only 6% do so regularly. (Insider)

  

• TikTok is partnering with TalkShopLive to bring live shopping to North America. The development comes after TikTok's in-house experiments with live shopping in the UK earlier this year missed sales targets. (Financial Times)

Social Media

• Twitter is rolling out the ability to edit tweets to Twitter Blue subscribers in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. (The Verge)

• Twitch will begin testing Elevated Chat, a new way for its users to boost their chat messages on the platform. (The Verge)

• Instagram is letting some creators add more than one link to their bio without a tool like Linktree. (Insider)

• Meta will shut down its newsletter platform, Bulletin, by early 2023 as it shifts its focus to “building a more robust creator economy.” (The Verge)

• Twitter launched a new feature lets users combine text, photos, videos, and GIFs in a single tweet. Content added will show up side by side or in a grid. (The Verge)

Video Games

• Two years after its launch, Playstation 5 is getting a native Disney+ app. (Streamable)

• Almost 75% of women wish more female characters in games looked like women in real life, and 62% of women feel misrepresented in gaming. (AdAge)

• About 12% of gamers globally have tried playing a Web3 game, and 15% of gamers are interested in doing so. (Coda)

Live Sports

• Sidney Crosby is the most popular player among US NHL fans, with 49% having a favorable opinion of him. (Morning Consult)

  

• MLB will launch a dedicated FAST channel in Europe via a partnership with the SportsTribal platform. (Sports Pro Media)

• The NBA app now has a For You vertical video feed featuring highlights from games, NBA-related shows, content from influencers, and content from partnered channels like Bleacher Report. (The Verge)

• ESPN has deployed a new global creative brand identity for its NBA coverage, as well as the WNBA and G League. (AdWeek)