Friends reunited

and

Aug 01, 2025

Welcome to an end-of-week update from Unmade. Further down, our digest of the latest AI developments for the media and marketing industry. And first, what we learned at yesterday afternoon’s big Tubi event.

We’ve announced the schedule for this year’s Compass series. Our panel-in-the-pub, end-of-year tour kicks off in Sydney on November 3 and concludes in Hobart a fortnight later. Reflecting on 2025 and projecting into 2026, please hold the date for your city:

A panel discussion in a pub as part of the Compass event series

3rd November – Compass Sydney
5th November – Compass Brisbane
10th November – Compass Adelaide
11th November – Compass Perth
17th November – Compass Melbourne
18th November – Compass Hobart

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Your annual membership also gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; and to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy.

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Tubi in the TV establishment

News Corp’s sales boss Louise Barrett signalled that Tubi will sign up for OzTam

Tim Burrowes writes:

How do you announce you’re signing up for OzTam when the ink isn’t quite on the contract?

You might, as News Corp did yesterday, invite OzTAM’s CEO Karen Halligan as a guest to the big Tubi showcase.

And you might drop an even broader hint, with MD of client partnerships Louise Barrett telling the room: “It’s why with Tubi we’re exploring future opportunities to work with OzTam in support of independent, transparent industry measurement. As Tubi continues to expand its presence here in the Australian market these discussions reflect a shared ambition to ensure consistent, credible reporting of streaming audiences.”

Those were scripted remarks on the autocue, by the way, not a throwaway remark. And just to underline it, Barrett’s comment was accompanied by the OzTAM logo, two feet tall on the big screen. We can assume hands have been shaken, even if contracts haven’t been signed.

It’s a remarkable fresh start as far as News Corp’s relationship with OzTAM goes. The TV ratings service is owned by Nine, Seven and Ten. And it’s less than two years since Foxtel Group, then majority owned by News Corp, walked away from OzTAM and the wider TV establishment, announcing new measurement partnerships with VideoAmp and Kantar.

The exit was triggered by Foxtel Media boss Mark Frain’s frustration at what he perceived as OzTAM’s shareholders failing to give him a full place at the table.

The night Foxtel broke up with the television establishment

Tim Burrowes

October 26, 2023

Read full story

If Foxtel was still owned by News Corp, it would have been unthinkable for Tubi to be part of OzTam, which back in May announced that Netflix had become the first streamer to sign up.

With the sale of Foxtel to DAZN, Tubi has become far more important to the portfolio of News Australia (there seems to have been a subtle rebrand of the industry-facing company brand, by the way; in yesterday’s preso, the word Corp was dropped).

Tubi is actually owned by sister company Fox Corp. Boss Lachlan Murdoch masterminded its purchase in 2020 for what now looks like a bargain price of US$440m, given the rise of FAST - free ad supported TV - over the last five years.

But while Foxtel Media was the sales house, Tubi didn’t get a lot of love, with Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany sceptical about widespread audience attraction.

Indeed, the nature of FAST services is less-than premium content. A handful of big evergreen archive shows like Friends or Gilmore Girls is supplemented by a large number of movies and TV episodes (125,000 of them on Tubi) you have probably never heard of.

Which means that as much as anything, Tubi will be a test of News Corp’s ability to market a brand to its audience. Since the deal was done and News began the marketing push, Tubi’s local audiences have risen by about 30%. In a world of increasing subscription fees, the price point of free is an attractive one.

As is the complicated nature of media, the central point of the All Screens for All Australians event was a little complicated too. Despite the presence - at six figure expense, I understand - of the Tubi bunny, the event was not merely the Tubi Upfronts. Instead, News Australia is making the case that throughout the day, it has Australia’s attention - from mobile on the commute to work right through to the lounge room TV at the end of the day.

The bunny cost more than MC Andrew Bucklow

As more brand advertising moves towards video, an integrated screen strategy has become more important for News - arguably more important than traditional display advertising. Yesterday’s event was all about reminding advertisers that Tubi is now integrated into the company’s Intent Connect targeting system.

I doubt that the stat actually exists, but I wonder at what point, more of News Australia’s audience is consuming video than is reading the written word.

And another logo appeared on screen which a decade ago anyone would have been amazed to see - Roy Morgan Research. Back in the day, News Corp was so opposed to Roy Morgan’s readership survey that it was the main force behind the creation of the now defunct alternative readership currency EMMA.

Now RMR’s work around audience attention even made it into the preso, as did its data around which forms of media the audience most dislikes ads. Greatest advertising aversion? YouTube. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

The Week in AI: PwC tips ad surge, Walmart kills search bar, Google spins research into video; and big tech boomtime

Cat McGinn writes:

AI ad surge to drive $3.5T media market by 2029

Consulting giant PwC released its Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2025-29 which forecast that AI-driven advertising will help propel global entertainment and media revenues to $3.5 trillion by 2029, with digital ad formats rising from 72% to 80% of ad revenue. The report predicted AI would play a pivotal role in optimising ad spend and campaign ROI, especially as it anticipated significant growth for connected TV.

Walmart’s AI to kill the search bar

Walmart announced that the future of shopping would be agentic. Hari Vasudev, Walmart's chief technology officer, said that the retail giant’s AI roadmap will replace keyword search with task‑driven agents. It revealed four AI agents, including “Sparky,” which can plan shopping trips, analyse pantry photos and build baskets with minimal user input.

Google turns research into instant video briefings

NotebookLM video now converts documents into narrated video summaries and slide decks, turning dense research into ready‑to‑share storytelling assets. For marketers, this means faster insight delivery and a new format for pitching ideas, briefing teams and repurposing content across campaigns.

GPT‑5 poised to supercharge AI‑driven marketing

Rumours surfaced that the release of OpenAI’s new model GPT‑5 will be as soon as early August. The new model is believed to integrate advanced reasoning, persistent memory, and multimodal capabilities, enabling marketers to manage campaigns, content, and personalisation with fewer errors and deeper context over time.

Big Tech’s AI bets pay off as usage and ad revenues soar

Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon all reported strong quarterly numbers that they put down to AI. Meta forecasted higher-than-expected upcoming ad revenue, and Microsoft flagged $30 bn in AI infrastructure investment. OpenAI revealed the platform now processes 2.5 billion prompts daily worldwide, including 330m from the US, more than double its December 2024 volume. Weekly active users have surged past half a billion, making it the fifth most‑visited website globally.

Unmade Index outplays the ASX

The Unmade Index outperformed the wider ASX All Ordinaries on Thursday with most of the main listed media and marketing stocks edging upwards while the wider stock exchange fell slightly.