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Advertisers Ride the Brakes: Sharp Drops in TV Spending Make Media Companies Vulnerable


Hollywood is transitioning to the generally less lucrative format of streaming, but still relies on TV advertisements to buoy its books.

The ad market “is going to stay weak for the first half of this year, then recover,” Jeff Shell declared in January, before he was ousted as NBCUniversal CEO for sexual misconduct three months later. “It’s becoming increasingly clear now that much like 2023, 2024 will have its share of complexity, particularly as it relates to the possibility of continued sluggish advertising trends,” Gunnar Wiedenfels, WB Discovery’s chief financial officer, said in November. To be sure, 2023 had plenty of unusual headwinds that also dented sales, like the Hollywood labor strikes that crimped production of movies and TV shows, which prompted entertainment giants to cut their own marketing expenditures.

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