Informa Acquires Cannes Lions Owner Ascential; YouTube Earns £6.7bn in Q2 Ad Revenue; UK Streaming Market Loses 300k Subscribers

by Aimee Newell Tarín on 25th Jul 2024 in News

On today’s news digest: Informa Acquires Cannes Lions Owner Ascential; YouTube Earns £6.7bn in Q2 Ad Revenue; UK Streaming Market Loses 300k Subscribers

Informa, the UK based and world’s biggest international events group, has agreed to acquire Ascential, owner of global conferences including the ad tech industry favourite, Cannes Lions festival. The deal closed at £1.2bn. Informa’s current market valuation stands at over £11bn. Through the acquisition, the group will expand events and accelerate growth.

Turning our attention to the streaming sector, YouTube’s ad business is thriving. The platform has revealed earnings of USD $8.66bn (£6.70bn) in advertising revenue during Q2. This figure marks an increase of 13% from the same time last year, and is particularly strong when compared to the numbers produced by many traditional media companies. Yet, this did not meet Wall Street expectations, which predicted YouTube’s ad revenue to reach an astounding USD $8.93bn (£6.91bn).

Looking at TV streaming specifically, Kantar’s latest Entertainment on Demand report revealed that the UK market lost 300,000 subscribers in Q2. This loss brought the number of British households subscribed to at least one paid streaming service to 19.5 million. During the quarter, only 8% of the UK population signed up for a new video-on-demand service – according to the figures, this marks the lowest acquisition rate in a year. Notably, there was a 6% increase (compared to 18 months ago) in consumers deciding to accept ads in exchange for a cheaper service. This is unsurprising, considering the current cost-of-living crisis. Disney+ was the streamer which managed to gain the most new streaming subscribers during the quarter.