Warner Bros. Discovery

Walmart Acquires Vibe.co to Boost SMB CTV Ads

Walmart announced on June 23, 2026 that it is acquiring Vibe.co, a French self-serve ad platform for connected-TV (CTV) commercials, for $1.4 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. Vibe will join Walmart Connect’s commerce ad ecosystem alongside Vizio, which Walmart acquired in 2024, and the companies plan to combine Vibe’s self-serve CTV tools with Walmart’s retail sales data to offer closed-loop attribution. Walmart says the deal is intended to make streaming advertising more accessible to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and to drive performance-focused CTV budgets toward Walmart’s retail media offerings. The acquisition is another example of consolidation in the CTV and media landscape as retailers and platforms build vertically integrated ad stacks.

HBO Max rolls out 'Moments' contextual ad solution

Warner Bros. Discovery is rolling out HBO Max’s contextual advertising product “Moments” to selected international markets — including Europe and Latin America — by the end of 2026. Moments uses AI from KERV.ai to analyse all HBO Max content for topics, moods and visual signals, creating curated contextual segments (e.g., cooking, fashion, wellbeing). The company says U.S. campaigns using Moments produced a 19% lift in viewer engagement and a 13% lift in purchase intent. HBO Max has identified about 25,000 Moments across its content catalog and positions the approach as scalable and privacy-friendly because it targets content context rather than personal data. Daniel Barnes, Head of Global Advertising Revenue at HBO Max, is quoted describing the initiative as a way to make advertising more relevant and seamless within premium content.

Senators Ask FCC to Pause Paramount‑WBD Merger Over Foreign Investment

Three Democratic U.S. Senators—Cory Booker, Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren—sent a June 18 letter to the Federal Communications Commission requesting that the agency delay approval of Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery until a government review of foreign investment is completed. Paramount disclosed to the FCC that roughly 49.5% of the combined company would be owned by foreign investors, well above the 25% statutory threshold that triggers heightened review for entities controlling FCC licenses. Senators warned that Paramount’s requested structure, which would allow foreign investors to increase stakes, could lead to full foreign ownership and has raised national security concerns that the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation may not have time to resolve before the planned July closing.