In this week’s Week in Charts, Stagwell’s Mark Penn on the state of holdcos, AI concerns top IAB Europe challenges, and “subscription cycling” on the rise.
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AI Concerns Top IAB Europe Survey on Ecosystem Challenges
AI concerns rank as the top ecosystem challenges facing the European digital ad industry, according to IAB Europe’s latest ‘State of Readiness: Sustainability in Digital Advertising’ report. “Local content producers are absorbing simultaneous shocks: declining direct traffic and audience control, alongside the large-scale ingestion of their work into AI systems without adequate compensation,” said Luís Marinho Falcão, Operations Director at IAB Portugal. “This points to a structural imbalance within the digital ecosystem. If the creation of high-quality, original content becomes economically unsustainable, the long-term consequence is not simply weaker publishers, but a gradual deterioration of the wider information environment.”
Almost Half of EU5 Streaming Video Consumers Choose Ad Tiers at Sign-Up
Nearly half (47 percent) of streaming video consumers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK exclusively watch streaming services with ads, according to FreeWheel’s ‘Voice of the Viewer’ study. While almost half of viewers selected ad-supported plans when they signed up, 27 percent of users in Spain are on ad tiers because they are bundled with other services, while 30 percent of respondents in France downgraded from a more expensive plan.
“Subscription Cycling” More Common Among Younger US Viewers
Subscription cycling – or signing up to a streaming service to watch a specific title then cancelling your subscription once you have finished watching it – is becoming common practice among younger consumers, according to US research from CivicScience. The results suggest that 19 percent of 18-29 year-olds have subscription cycled more than five times in the past year, compared with just 1 percent of consumers aged 65+.
Banijay and All3Media Merger to Create Largest Production Group
The merger of France’s Banijay Entertainment and Redbird IMI-owned All3Media will create the largest production group by number of companies, according to Ampere Analysis, with 247 production companies under its ownership. “Based on company financial reports, the combined operations of All3Media and Banijay generated an estimated $710 million in content distribution revenue during 2025, reinforcing Banijay’s position as a market leader and highlighting the strategic logic of the merger,” said Reade Layton, Lead Researcher at Ampere.
The Week in Stocks
Agencies
Shares in Stagwell withstood a decline in agency stocks thanks to solid results and a positive outlook in last week’s earnings call.
TV
In a difficult week for TV stocks, Canal+ fell 25 percent due to shrinking revenues and subscriber losses at its South African pay-TV business MultiChoice. RTL Group bucked the downward trend after forecasting its streaming unit to reach profitability this year.
Publishers
Thomson Reuters stock is on a five-day losing streak, falling 14 percent over the past week.
Ad Tech
Viant is the only ad tech stock on our list to see stock market gains over the past week, following the firm’s full-year results where Viant posted 22 percent YoY revenue growth.
Tech
Adobe’s share price took a hit on Thursday after CEO Shantanu Narayen announced he is stepping down after 18 years at the helm, casting fresh doubts over the software company’s strategy to battle mounting AI competition.
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