Warner Bros to Split Streaming and TV Businesses: Barb Tools Overestimate Broadcaster Reach

ITV has exciting news for viewers looking to watch their favorite shows on YouTube! The broadcaster has teamed up with YouTube’s partner program, making their library available on the video platform. To make this happen, ITV has set up a special unit within their commercial team focused solely on YouTube. This collaboration opens up new possibilities for advertisers, who can now target their ad campaigns based on specific ITV content, from favorite programs and genres to demographics and device types. This move is all part of ITV’s mission to expand the reach of their content beyond traditional TV and their streaming platform ITX.

In other news, Warner Bros Discovery is making some big changes by splitting its TV networks and streaming/studios businesses into two separate units. By restructuring in this way, there’s a chance the company could eventually split up altogether. The TV business will now concentrate on maximizing profitability and free cash flow, while the streaming and studios division will focus on driving growth and increasing invested capital. Warner Bros’ CEO, David Zaslav, believes this new setup will give them more flexibility for future strategic opportunities.

And finally, a tool used by advertisers and media agencies to plan campaigns on streaming services, called Barb’s Advanced Campaign Hub, has been found to be overestimating broadcaster reach by an average of 40%. This discrepancy was revealed by Vicky Fox, Omnicom Media Group UK chief planning officer, at a recent panel discussion. The tool combines linear Barb panel data with first-party data, so it’s important for advertisers to be aware of this potential overestimation. It seems that no discrepancies have been found for linear TV figures, so advertisers can feel confident in those numbers.