The Frenemy Report: 15 Minutes of Attention

HBO's new management is making a splash, with John Stankey, an AT&T exec who now oversees HBO in his new role as chief executive of Warner Media, telling the team, "We need hours a day,” referring to the time viewers spend watching HBO programs. “It’s not hours a week, and it’s not hours a month. We need hours a day. You are competing with devices that sit in people’s hands that capture their attention every 15 minutes.”More and more publishers are heading OTT, with WIRED announcing a TV channel. It will be free and ad-supported ... a model which could also apply to Amazon in the near future: UK job ad indicates Amazon wants to bring TV advertising and free TV channels to Prime. The living room increasingly makes sense for capturing the attention of elusive Millennials and Gen Zers-- check out this VAB study which found on average, in any given minute, the ad-supported multi-screen TV 18-34 audience is six times larger than Facebook and over two times larger than YouTube in the summer months.

Why are we so concerned with the Frenemies, anyway? Maybe it's because they (Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat) are feeding us "behavioral cocaine," disguised as notifications, in a bid for our limited hours of attention.Will IGTV And Digital Long-Form Finally Bring Big TV Ad Budgets Online?  

[AdExchanger]Given all the trade-offs, I believe the most likely scenario in the near term is an increasing divergence of strategies between brands.Marketing Minute (Video): Instagram’s IGTV App Debuts For Long-Form Content

[TVREV]Brands and influencers are excited about the potential for longer-form videos that can tell stories to Instagram’s 1 billion users. But traditional Hollywood making content for IGTV? Don’t count on it, because there’s no way to monetize the pricey programming they might make for the new app, especially when so many other outlets are willing to pay.YouTube Pledges $25 Million to Help Fight Fake News

[Variety]YouTube said it provide funding in about 20 global markets to support news organizations in “building sustainable video operations.” The grants will let new orgs build out video capabilities, train staff on video best practices, and enhance production facilities. YouTube says it also will expands the team focused on supporting news publishers.

Philo, A Skinny Bundle For Non-Sports Viewers, Raises $40 Million From AMC, Discovery, Viacom

[Tubefilter]Philo will use funds raised from its Series C to invest in new product features and enhancements — including a “social media TV experience,” according to Deadline — as well as to expand its marketing efforts. Philo’s other existing investors include A+E Networks and Scripps Networks, who participated in a $25 million round last November. Per Crunchbase, Philo has raised roughly $107 million in venture funding to date.HBO Must Get Bigger and Broader, Says Its New Overseer

[NY Times]Mr. Stankey described a future in which HBO would substantially increase its subscriber base and the number of hours that viewers spend watching its shows. To pull it off, the network will have to come up with more content, transforming itself from a boutique operation, with a focus on its signature Sunday night lineup, into something bigger and broader.Go90 Went But Brands Have More Long-Form Video Options Than Ever [TVREV]Brands are only a small portion of the entire universe of YouTube videos, according to analysis by Tubular Labs, which tracks 4 billion online videos. In part that’s because of the sheer overwhelming scale of YouTube, where around 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute. It’s easy to feel lost there if you don’t have a smart video strategy to get your content seen.‘Never had a chance’: Inside Verizon’s $1 billion bad bet on Go90

[Digiday]Multiple Go90 production partners describe a scenario where Verizon executives were so consumed early on with the idea of providing a large quantity of high-quality content, that they never showed any focus.

There was no indication that Verizon actually knew the audience that they were trying to reach. Meanwhile, YouTube and social platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat continued to draw in younger users with formats and products that made sense for mobile screens.

Millennials Prefer TV Viewing To Digital Media [MediaPost]On average, in any given minute, the ad-supported multi-screen TV 18-34 audience is six times larger than Facebook and over two times larger than YouTube in the summer months, according to the Video Advertising Bureau, the video advertising trade group.Netflix Is No. 1 Choice for TV Viewing, Beating Broadcast, Cable and YouTube (Study) [Variety]For the survey of 2,500 U.S. adults conducted in May, Cowen & Co. asked, “Which platforms do you use most often to view video content on TV?” Overall, Netflix captured the No. 1 with 27% of total respondents, followed by basic cable at 20%, broadcast at 18% and YouTube at 11%.Silicon Valley insiders say Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter are using 'behavioral cocaine' to turn people into addicts [BI]"There was definitely an awareness of the fact that the product was habit-forming and addictive," he said. "You have a business model designed to engage you and get you to basically suck as much time out of your life as possible and then selling that attention to advertisersInstagram's Stories feature is now twice as big as Snapchat, with 400 million daily users [Business Insider]It's been a huge success for Instagram, and its daily userbase has grown by 150 million in the last year. Back in June 2017, it had announced it hit 250 million daily users.Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More than $100 Billion [Bloomberg]The photo-sharing platform, which reached 1 billion monthly active users earlier this month, will likely help nudge Instagram revenue past $10 billion over the next 12 months, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jitendra Waral wrote in a report Monday.Goodbye, dark posts: How Facebook’s and Twitter’s ad-transparency tools work [Digiday]Every Facebook Page carries a new button called “Info and Ads.” That new section will display the ads the Page is currently running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Facebook’s partner network. Facebook also will have a button to report each ad. Facebook also will publicly share more information about Pages. Pages will display changes to their names along with the date they were created. Facebook said it plans to add more information in the coming weeks.Creators are making longer videos to cater to the YouTube algorithm [Digiday]While YouTube’s algorithm has prioritized watch time since 2012, creators have seen it shift toward favoring videos that people are likely to click on, but from channels they don’t subscribe to over videos from subscribed channels, Fine said. But if creators can demonstrate that their audiences spend more time on YouTube in order to watch their longer videos, they may be able to retrain YouTube’s algorithm to promote their videos in order to generate the desired watch time.AT&T promised lower prices after Time Warner merger—it’s raising them instead [Ars Technica]The $5 increase will affect all DirecTV Now tiers except for a Spanish-language TV package, AT&T told Ars. That means the DirecTV Now packages that currently cost $35, $50, $60, and $70 a month will go up to $40, $55, $65, and $75.Building a Digital Brand That ‘Gets Us’ [Multichannel News]

Herb Scannell, Mitu CEO, spoke with Multichannel News about his vision for the Mitú brand — which he said reaches 90 million people a month on social media with original long- and short-form programming — and the opportunity to serve an underserved audience of younger Latino viewers.Tracy Morgan: ‘It’s All Love’ in His Old Brooklyn Neighborhood [WSJ]Tracy Morgan is spending a lot of time in Brooklyn, marveling at the gentrification and getting comedy ideas.

The 49-year-old actor and comedian just wrapped up the airing of his first season of his series, “The Last O.G.,” on TBS. O.G. is shorthand for “original gangster,” a tough guy from the streets who has reached an advanced age.Which Teams and Brands Are Driving World Cup Attention? [B&C]While teams like Germany and Argentina guided the story of the World Cup on video platforms, Emotional Reactions (ERs) provided a slightly different perspective. Canvs, the emotion measurement AI company, measured ERs during linear broadcasts of group play to determine the topics that drove the most conversation on Twitter in the U.S.Who Will Buy LiveRamp? A List Of Favorites, And Dark Horses [AdExchanger]There’s no close second to LiveRamp’s data onboarding practice, he said, and regulatory concerns make it a more critical asset for the industry, even if it comes with added risk: Oracle, Adobe, AT&T, Salesforce…

IPG Confirms $2.3 Billion Deal to Acquire Data Marketing Company Acxiom [Adweek]IPG already has a close relationship with Acxiom, using the data provider’s cross-platform IDs to power media planning and buying through its AMP and Unity platforms. With AMS, IPG can offer more robust services around data strategy and management, audience creation, performance media, planning, buying and analytics.Instagram Stories, Now Twice as Big as Snapchat,

Adds Music Integration [Variety]Snapchat Launches Augmented Reality Experiences in Disneyland, Universal Studios [The Hollywood Reporter]Facebook pursues AI in bid to ID harmful content [Ad Age]How publishers are using Instagram’s new long-form video feature, IGTV [Digiday]Twitter Elevates Periscope Co-Founder Kayvon Beykpour to Head of Product [Variety]How Food Network, HGTV and other Discovery properties are making short-form video work [Digiday]Gen-Z Studio Brat Brings ‘Boss Cheer’ To Snapchat [Digiday]Fandom Acquires Screen Junkies From Defy Media [Variety]Comedy Central International’s Claire McArdle on moving TV content to platforms [Digiday]Wired goes over-the-top with new streaming TV channel [Digiday]UK job ad indicates Amazon wants to bring TV advertising and free TV channels to Prime [TechCrunch]