UK BVOD Ad Spend to Surpass £1 Billion in 2024; FTC to Investigate Surveillance Pricing; Grab Abandons Acquisition of Trans-cab

by Aimee Newell Tarín on 30th Jul 2024 in News

On today’s news digest: UK BVOD Ad Spend to Surpass £1 Billion in 2024; FTC to Investigate Surveillance Pricing; Grab Abandons Acquisition of Trans-cab

UK Ad spend on broadcast video on demand (BVOD) services will surpass £1bn for the first time in 2024, forecasts the latest Expenditure Report from the Advertising Association and WARC. Year-over-year growth in the market is set to increase by 13.7%. Thanks to this year’s summer of sport, overall TV spend is also set to increase by just under 4% this year. Taking a wider look at the industry overall, the report reveals that UK ad spend increased 9.3% in the first quarter of the year to reach a total figure of £9.2bn, rising above the previous forecast.

Turning our attention to governmental matters within ad tech, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered eight companies to provide information regarding their use of ‘surveillance pricing’ – a practice which makes use of personal data to set prices based on shoppers’ particular characteristics. The FTC laid out its intention to better understand the process and assess the practice’s potential impact on privacy, competition, and consumer protection. The companies targeted in the request are: Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture, and McKinsey & Co. According to the FTC’s press release on the issue, the agency is “using its 6(b) authority, which authorises the Commission to conduct wide-ranging studies that do not have a specific law enforcement purpose, to obtain information”.

In the APAC region, Grab’s proposed acquisition of Trans-cab – Singapore’s largest private taxi operator – has broken down. The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) reported that both companies withdrew their applications for the acquisition. The potential partnership between both parties had caught the watchdog’s attention; it determined that their deal was likely to considerably reduce competition in the industry. Consequently, the watchdog had given both parties a 10 working-day period to suggest solutions to address its concerns. Following the breakdown of the acquisition, the CCCS ended its assessment of the proposed partnership.