The 10 Biggest Convergent TV Moments of 2022

The 2022 TV year was full of mega-mergers, billion-dollar deals and even a fantasy face-off, and now it's time to reflect on the disruption. As part of Adweek’s year-in-review coverage, we took a look back at 10 of convergent TV's most important, surprising and industry-changing moments, examining the stories that shaped the year and that will have an impact well into the future. Here are the 10 biggest CTV moments of 2022: TV Ad Sales Chiefs and Buyers on How the Ad Market Changed in 2022 Netflix and Disney+ launch ad tiers The streaming wars entered a new phase when Disney+ and Netflix launched ad tiers in 2022. Disney first announced its tier in March, even bringing its offering to the 2022 upfront. Not to be outdone, Netflix, long an ad-averse streamer, surprised the industry in April, announcing an ad tier was on the way amid subscriber losses. Netflix ultimately beat Disney+'s offering to market by one month and one dollar, coming in at $6.99/month in November. (Disney+ debuted in December at $7.99/month.) However, things weren't necessarily smooth sailing for Netflix. The streamer had minimal consumer-facing marketing ahead of the launch, and the platform reportedly refunded partners after missing viewership expectations. Still, buyers previously told Adweek they were excited for Jeremi Gorman, Netflix's worldwide advertising president, and Peter Naylor, vp of ad sales, to right the ship. Though both streamers started their offerings with modest targeting and capabilities, Disney+ and Netflix will roll out more features for advertisers as they grow their AVOD audiences in 2023. And with bigger audiences and more capabilities, marketers will likely be moved to tiers.—Bill Bradley Warner Bros. Discovery's $43 billion merger Who could forget about the mega-merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery? Warner Bros. Discovery has officially been a company since April after the groups closed their $43 billion deal. The new(ish) company united WarnerMedia—which includes Warner Bros., HBO, TNT, TBS, CNN, Cartoon Network and streamer HBO Max—with Discovery’s own portfolio, which includes Discovery, HGTV, TLC, ID, Food Network, OWN, Magnolia Network and Discovery+. However, since the merger, CEO David Zaslav has been in cost-cutting mode, looking to drop around $3.5 billion. Executives have shuffled in and out of the door. And when it comes to cost savings, nothing is safe. —Mollie Cahillane Magnolia Network Rolls Out Prestige Spots in Ad Model Shift HBO Max's Cancel Culture In the name of cost-cutting, HBO hosted its own Red Wedding-style TV show massacre over the summer, canceling several projects including a nearly completed $90 million Batgirl film. With the cancellations, rumors started swirling that HBO Max would end scripted content or be shuttered altogether as Zaslav looked to balance the newly merged company's books. The moves even had social media buzzing over a Warner Bros. Discovery earnings call, wondering what would happen to the popular streamer. Of course, HBO Max was never going to be shuttered. Instead, Warner Bros. Discovery is planning on unveiling a combined HBO Max and Discovery+ streamer in the spring. Unfortunately, Zaslav is still trying to make the budget work and canceled several critically acclaimed HBO and HBO Max shows in the process, including Westworld, The Nevers and Los Espookys, removing them from HBO Max altogether in favor of third-party FAST offerings to improve the bottom line. In other words, changes are happening... quickly.—B.B. Hi Bob, Bye Bob There have been plenty of executive shakeups in 2022 throughout the industry, but none more stunning than Bob Iger returning to his (magic) kingdom. The former Disney CEO came back to the role after less than a year of retirement—ousting his hand-picked replacement, Bob Chapek. Iger was CEO from 2005 to 2020 and served as executive chairman through the end of 2021. Iger will remain in the position for at least two more years, despite Chapek having signed a multi-year renewal in June to stay on as CEO. But that deal came before the company’s direct-to-consumer segment lost $1.5 billion in revenue last quarter—and $4 billion over the last year—which spooked investors, not to mention the board itself. We’ll see what 2023 brings to the House of Mouse. —M.C. 25 TV Execs and Insiders on 2022’s Most Important, Yet Overlooked, Trends Amazon merges with MGM In a merger-heavy year, it’s easy to focus on the one that dominated headlines for months. But tech giant Amazon added James Bond to the fold in March, completing an $8.5 billion merger with Hollywood studio MGM. It was the ecommerce retailer's second-biggest acquisition ever, behind only Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion. In addition to the 4,000 films and 17,000 hours of TV the studio holds, the merger gave Amazon co-ownership of the James Bond brand after Sony’s distribution deal expired. And coming in January, streaming service Epix will rebrand as MGM+—another plus in the streaming column for Amazon. —M.C. The slap heard around the world The 2022 Academy Awards ceremony was a historic moment in film and television history. On the night of one of the biggest honors in Hollywood, Apple TV+ became the first streaming service to ever win a Best Picture Oscar for CODA. That’s what we all remember, right? Will Smith—who went on to win Best Actor later in the evening—shocked the world when he walked onstage and slapped presenter Chris Rock over a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. What followed were weeks of chaos that led to Smith resigning from the Academy and being banned from attending Academy functions for 10 years. Plus, million-dollar decisions hung in the balance as streamers pondered what to do with Smith's projects, including a biopic that's now back in the works. But hey—CODA is a great film and good for Apple TV+. —M.C. Nielsen’s rocky road The biggest measurement player in the game has been working with a broken yardstick for over a year. After the Media Rating Council stripped Nielsen of its accreditation for national ratings in 2021, the MRC voted in November to maintain that suspension—at least for now. Nielsen, which admitted to lowballing audiences nationally and locally early in the pandemic, is gearing up to launch Nielsen One, a cross-platform tool designed to let marketers and publishers transact on a single metric across linear and digital platforms. Nielsen’s 2022 woes have given room for other measurement companies to carve out space. Comscore, VideoAmp, iSpot and Samba TV have all partnered with publishers for test-and-learns, and it’s a race to the finish line when it comes to measurement and alternative currencies. —M.C. P&G Is the Latest Brand Supporting Alternative Identifier UID2 Amazon Prime/House of the Dragon Prime Video’s massive J.R.R. Tolkien-inspired series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and HBO’s first Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon, arrived on their respective platforms less than two weeks apart in the fall, immediately pitting the two shows against each other in a ratings battle. Each fantasy series featured multimillion-dollar (and in the case of Rings of Power, possibly billion-dollar) budgets and had the potential to make or break their respective platforms. Though House of the Dragon seemed to come out on top in public sentiment, both series were championed as wildly successful. Amazon's series brought in more than 25 million viewers globally in its first day, making it the biggest debut for a show on its Prime Video streaming service. Meanwhile, House of the Dragon episodes averaged 29 million viewers each and helped kickstart HBO's Game of Thrones universe, massively boosting viewership for the original series as well. Rather than one show to rule them all, this clash of kings turned out to be more of a Fellowship.—B.B. The CW purchased Besides the mass cancelations at HBO, The CW experienced an exodus of its own. The network had a slew of cancellations as it prepared for new ownership over the summer, with DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Vampire Diaries offshoot Legacies and freshman series Naomi all meeting their ends. In October, Nexstar completed a 75% acquisition stake in the network, sending the company's old guard packing. CEO Mark Pedowitz, ad sales chief Rob Tuck and several executives were soon gone from the company, leaving several questions in the deal's wake. For instance, The CW was the first upfront week presenter to close talks in 2022. However, there's still a major question of whether or not the company will remain in its Thursday morning slot or if more changes are on the way. —B.B. Google scores NFL Sunday Ticket The National Football League has reached an exclusive multi-year deal to bring all out-of-market Sunday afternoon NFL games broadcast on Fox and CBS to Google's YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels. The subscription-only Sunday Ticket package had been with DirecTV since 1994. The satellite provider renewed that agreement in 2014, paying the NFL around $1.5 billion per year for the rights. But with the deal expiring in 2022, Google has signed on to pay north of $2 billion per season in a seven-year deal beginning in 2023. So YouTube TV, feel free to do your touchdown dance. —B.B.