With Christmas upon us, we're keeping things brief this week. Wishing you a wonderful holiday.

Larry Ellison gives personal guarantee for Paramount takeover of Warner Bros Discovery

Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison personally backstopped $40.4 billion in equity financing for Paramount's $108.4 billion hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery, escalating a corporate battle after WBD agreed to sell its HBO and movie studios to Netflix for $82.7 billion instead.

Media buyers shift spend from The Trade Desk's OpenPath over transparency concerns

Several US media agencies have pulled or paused spending on The Trade Desk's OpenPath product after investigations revealed they couldn't clearly explain to clients the total costs of buying inventory through the programmatic supply chain tool. Some buyers estimated The Trade Desk applied premiums between 10% to 15% on transactions, with agencies saying the lack of cost visibility made it impossible to confidently justify the spending to clients despite OpenPath's promise of a cleaner, more direct programmatic pipeline.

Nielsen and Roku Renew Their Vows By Sharing Even More Data With Each Other

Nielsen and Roku expanded their decade-long partnership with a new multi-year deal that integrates Roku's streaming data into Nielsen's campaign measurement tools while giving Roku access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, as the companies seek to help advertisers better measure audience reach across Roku's devices that account for 21% of all TV viewing time.

Despite the hype, agentic AI isn't ready to take the brand controls just yet

Marketers are testing AI agents that promise autonomous content creation and campaign execution, but companies like New American Funding and Oura still require human review before publishing, with concerns about brand consistency and accuracy keeping the technology from full autonomy despite reported productivity gains.

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