The next frontier for the ad market isn’t on TV — it’s at screens near points of sale.

Television had long been the key target for advertisers, until tech companies such as Alphabet and Meta-owned platforms like Facebook began to gobble up market share. While ad dollars are rapidly shifting from traditional TV to streaming, retail and consumer product companies are now taking up a significant part of the mix.

The so-called retail media networks — the advertising publishing platforms — of e-commerce, retail and consumer companies like Amazon, Walmart and Kroger are attracting billions of dollars in advertising, according to data from eMarketer and GroupM, the media investment arm of WPP, the world’s biggest advertising group.

Global retail media ad spending is expected to more than double from $114.18 billion in 2023 to $233.89 billion in 2027, according to eMarketer. Retail media is expected to represent a larger percentage of digital advertising spending, which has begun to eclipse traditional media spending, growing from 18.9% of that segment in 2023 to 25.7% in 2027, according to eMarketer.

“What we hear from brands most directly is they no longer wake up with a recipe to buy X amount of TV, X amount of social, X amount of digital. They wake up every day trying to buy growth, trying to buy outcomes for their business,” said Sean McCaffrey, president and CEO of GSTV, an on-the-go media network with over 29,000 screens at refueling points tied to convenience retail stores.

GSTV screens reach 115 million viewers per month across 49 states.

Brands are “more open-minded as to where they can find those audiences,” McCaffrey said.

“It’s the new TV for mass reach advertising,” said Mark Boidman, head of media and entertainment investment banking at Solomon Partners. “If you want to reach someone fast, it’s best to get them in a store or on your app. … It’s a 360-degree approach.”

The kind of advertising purchased through retail media networks is often found on in-store displays and screens, websites, mobile apps, streaming services, smart TVs and social media. Not only is it fertile ground for an advertiser to get their offerings in front of consumers looking to spend, it comes with a lot of first-party data.

The amount of data that retailers have on customers — from one-time buyers to loyalists — is extremely valuable to advertisers who want to optimize their exposure.

“If [brands] advertise with a digital ad, for example, and a customer transacts a week later in a store or club, we can connect that up for them and let them know that the ad really worked,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told CNBC earlier this year. “That’s the differentiating advantage that we’ve got.”

Walmart has been a particularly big player. While it’s still a new frontier for the retailer, advertising has propelled profits at the giant retailer in recent quarters. The company also recently agreed to buy TV maker Vizio in a bid to further boost its ad business.

Of the companies eMarketer tracks, Amazon was considered the biggest retail media network in the U.S., with a roughly 75% share of retail media ad revenue. Other top networks by revenue include Walmart, Instacart, eBay and Etsy.

The shift toward retail media comes as advertisers are faced with tech privacy changes that has led to a pullback in the collection of data.

Earlier this year, Google began its revamp of how it and other companies track users online, namely the use of cookies, which keep tabs on the activity of internet users so that advertisers can target them with relevant ads.

In January, Google began to restrict cookies for 1% of its Chrome browser users, with the goal of completely removing third-party cookies by the third quarter of this year. Advertisers have been grappling with how to make the transition.

Advertising and media executives note that retail media networks now dominate conversations at conferences and other gatherings, such as the Cannes Lions advertising festival. It’s often a highlight on earnings calls, too.

″[Retail media networks] have that balance with targeting and privacy and compliance. I think that’s where the money really starts shifting,” Tim Hurd, vice president of media activation at Goodway Group. “I think that’s key. These retailers have that kind of data” 

The rise of retail media ads comes against a backdrop of major shifts in the media landscape. Pay-TV customer numbers and traditional TV viewership (outside of sports) continue to decline as more viewers move toward streaming.

And although ad buying in digital and streaming is rebounding, traditional TV still lags. That much was clear in the first-quarter earnings reports of media giants like Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Disney saw a first-quarter decline in ad revenue for its traditional cable networks and Hulu, despite an increase at cable crown jewel ESPN; Warner Bros. Discovery reported a drop in ad revenue; Paramount Global got an expected boost from airing the Super Bowl; and NBCUniversal’s domestic ad revenue was flat. Streaming ad revenue for the legacy media giants, however, showed growth.

Outside of tentpole moments on TV, such as the Super Bowl and other live sports, advertisers are now strategizing on multiple fronts and divvying up spending across TV, social media, e-commerce and digital, said Goodway Group’s Hurd.

“Linear TV advertising is still declining,” said Kate Scott-Dawkins, GroupM’s global president of business intelligence, noting the last decade has seen ad revenue shift from print and radio to TV and now toward digital.

Retail media revenue grew from less than $1 billion in the U.S. a decade ago to a projected $42 billion this year — or $129.4 billion globally, said Scott-Dawkins, citing GroupM’s data, noting that brand advertising budgets may not directly shift from traditional TV into on-site retail advertising.

She added traditional TV revenue may move to smart TVs, however, informed by the data on customer spending habits that retailers can provide.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

Soaring auto insurance costs have been a principle driver behind inflation over the past year, but there could be relief on the way, according to Bank of America.

The bank’s economists see several driving factors behind the run-up in costs to ease in the months ahead, possibly taking some of the heat off a category that has pushed the Federal Reserve to keep up its inflation fight.

“The turbocharged increases in motor vehicle insurance premiums are a response to underwriting losses in the industry. Insurers saw losses,” BofA economist Stephen Juneau said in a note. However, he added, “There are signs that many insurers are getting back to profitability.”

Primarily, the hit to insurers, which has been passed on to consumers, arose from three sources: higher vehicle prices, increased costs for repairs and “more accidents as driving trends returned to normal,” Juneau said.

There’s some good news on that front.

Sales prices for new and used vehicles have been trending lower in recent months and are down 0.4% and 6.9%, respectively, on a 12-month basis, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data through April. Also, repair and maintenance services costs were flat in April though still up 7.6% from a year ago.

Motor vehicle insurance costs, though, continued to soar.

The category rose 1.8% in April on a monthly basis and was up 22.6% from a year ago, the largest annual increase since 1979, according to Bank of America.

In the CPI calculation, auto insurance has a weighting of nearly 3%, so it’s a significant component.

The recent trends probably do not “mean that your premium will fall, but we think the rate of increase should slow,” Juneau said.

That has been the general story with inflation: prices are not falling, but the rate of increase is well off the pace of mid-2022 when inflation hit its highest level in more than 40 years. Overall CPI inflation ran at a 3.4% annual rate in April.

There’s one other tidbit of good news when it comes to Fed policy.

The central bank’s primary inflation barometer is the Commerce Department’s measure of personal consumption expenditures, not the consumer price index from the BLS. In the PCE gauge, auto insurance has a smaller weighting, meaning it is less of an inflation driver.

If the BofA forecast for insurance disinflation is accurate, it could at least give the Fed more confidence to start cutting rates later this year. Current market pricing is indicating an expected first cut in September, with one more possible before the end of the year.

“We think further improvement in this aggregate is one key for the Fed to become more confident in the disinflationary process and start its cutting cycle,” Juneau said. “Until then, we expect the Fed to keep rates in park.”

Many live music fans likely met the news that the U.S. Justice Department is seeking to break up Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation with glee.

Long the subject of consumer complaints, angst toward the two companies reached a crescendo in 2022 when Bruce Springsteen fans were confronted with so-called “dynamic pricing” that saw face-value ticket costs rise to hundreds of dollars. Later that same year, demand for tickets to Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” caused Ticketmaster’s website to crash when seats first went on sale.

While experts say it will take some time before fans see relief stemming from the DOJ’s actions, assuming they are successful, the results should ultimately benefit consumers and artists alike.

The Biden administration is accusing Live Nation of exercising monopoly power over the live entertainment space, alleging the company controls some 60% of concert promotions at major venues and about 80% of ticketing operations through Ticketmaster — figures Live Nation has disputed.

For fans, according to the Justice Department, that has meant higher face-value ticket prices — plus higher fees — as well as diminished competition that inherently reduces innovation and makes the ticket-buying experience worse.

Live Nation has said other factors are to blame for these issues.

If past antitrust enforcement is any guide, it could take years for those lower prices to arrive, even if the DOJ ultimately succeeds in breaking up Live Nation.

The benchmark case for large antimonopoly suits is the one the U.S. brought against Microsoft. The Justice Department first charged the tech giant with violating the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1998. Between a trial, an appeal by Microsoft and ultimately a settlement, the case was not resolved until 2004.

A similar set of events is likely to play out as Live Nation has vowed to fight the DOJ’s lawsuit.

“It’s going to be a battle in the courts for some time,” said Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, a consumer advocacy group that has called for the breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

Even after the suit, Microsoft maintained a dominant position in personal computing. But Harper said the suit helped pave the way for many of today’s tech power players, like Google and Apple, to take on greater market share and ultimately usher in more consumer choices.

Harper said breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster would ideally foster more competition by allowing new firms into the market, giving consumers, artists and venues more choice in who they work with — and in turn driving down costs across the board.

“You could see venues testing out and shopping around for different ticketing platforms and not having to stick with just one like Ticketmaster,” Harper said. “And that could lead to lower prices for fans, because of the fees Ticketmaster adds on their site.”

Roger Alford, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said a post breakup world in live events could look more like the European model, where so-called open ticketing allows multiple ticketing companies to have access to a promoter’s tickets for a given tour. Alford pointed out that many Taylor Swift fans have found it cheaper to fly abroad to see the pop star on tour than pay the prices found in the U.S.

“Breakups for antitrust reasons are unusual; courts are reluctant to do that,” Alford said. “But this is one of those situations where it might be necessary.”

Others are less optimistic. Bob Lefsetz, an influential music industry analyst and publisher of the Lefsetz Letter newsletter, wrote in a blog post that the DOJ’s suit, assuming it succeeds, will not be able to overcome the structural and market forces, including demands for greater returns from artists, that have driven the overall price of live events higher.

“Ticket prices have nothing to do with Ticketmaster,” Lefsetz wrote, adding: “If you think any change is going to trickle down to the consumer, you’re delusional.”

He argued venues will be reluctant to give up the guaranteed money that has come with signing long-term contracts with Live Nation.

“The money’s just going to be shifted around, but it will all be behind the scenes, and you’ll end up paying the same,” Lefsetz wrote, arguing: “They’re going to have to get [that money] somewhere else, after all it’s a business.”

Mark Meador, president of the Fan Fairness Coalition, a group that has sought to raise awareness of Live Nation’s alleged monopoly, is nevertheless confident that a breakup will occur.

If that happens, he said in an interview with NBC News, fans of live entertainment should ultimately enjoy lower costs and a better experience when they go to buy tickets.

“I think this will be a boon for consumers,” Meador said. “If we can separate [Live Nation and Ticketmaster] and create space for competition, we can expect to see lower fees and more innovation, and avoid problems associated with tickets not being sold in easy ways.” he said.

He continued: “The sticker shock we get when we see those fees — those are things we expect to go away as competition is allowed and opportunities are created for other entrants.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that he doesn’t support President Biden’s recent announcement of a tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

“Neither Tesla nor I asked for these tariffs,” Musk said in response to a question from CNBC’s Karen Tso during a question and answer session at the VivaTech conference here on Thursday. “In fact, I was surprised when they were announced.”

The Biden administration last week said it was placing a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicle imports to the U.S. in a bid to stop cheap Chinese EVs from flooding the U.S. market. The White House says Beijing’s subsidies are helping companies overproduce cheap clean energy products like solar panels and EVs that outpace domestic demand.

Tesla has been struggling this year due to an aging fleet of EVs, weaker consumer demand for its vehicles and increased global competition, most notably in China. Revenue slumped in the first quarter by the most since 2012, and the stock price is down almost 30% in 2024.

“Tesla competes quite well in the market in China with no tariffs and no deferential support,” Musk said on Thursday. “I’m in favor of no tariffs.”

Musk added that he doesn’t agree with tax incentives for EVs, either.

“I’m in favor of no tariffs and no incentives for electric vehicles, or for oil and gas,” the Tesla CEO said.

Musk’s remarks Thursday come after he suggested earlier this year that Chinese EV companies will crush competitors elsewhere in the absence of trade restrictions.

“Frankly, I think, if there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other companies in the world,” Musk said on the company’s earnings call in January.

Earlier, when asked for his views on whether Biden’s 100% tariffs would give him to the green light to bring a lower-priced car to market, Musk’s line cut out and the audience were left for several minutes waiting for him to come back online.

Some attendees left the dome where the Q&A session was being livestreamed.

Boeing will burn through cash this year and deliveries of new planes won’t improve in the second quarter from the first, as the manufacturer deals with a host of production challenges tied to its bestselling planes, the company’s CFO, Brian West, said Thursday.

A month ago, West forecast Boeing would generate free cash flow “in the low single-digit billions.” The new forecast shows the mounting costs of the plane maker’s latest crises.

Boeing burned through nearly $4 billion in cash in the first quarter and West said that figure could be similar or “possibly a little worse” in the second quarter, but that the company would likely return to generating cash in the second half of 2024.

The company’s aircraft deliveries in the first quarter fell to the lowest level since the pandemic. The bulk of a plane’s price is paid when it’s handed over to a customer.

Boeing’s shares lost more than 7% on Thursday after West’s comments at a Wolfe Research industry conference, a slide that weighed down the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

“We have frustrated and disappointed our customers because of some of the production supply chain issues that we’re up against,” West said at the conference. “And while I understand that frustration, the most important thing we can do for our customers and the supply chain in the industry is to focus on the actions that are underway as we speak so that we could stabilize this production system, improve quality, and get more predictable.”

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun in March said he would step down by the end of the year, and the company replaced the chairman and chief executive of its commercial airplane unit. Leading up to the shake-up, CEOs of major airline customers complained about delivery delays and difficulty planning flights because of surprise disruptions.

Boeing’s latest production issues surfaced after a door plug blew out midair from a nearly new 737 Max 9 at the start of the year, just as the company was trying to repair years of reputational damage from two fatal Max crashes in 2018 and 2019.

The accident increased federal scrutiny of the company, whose executives have vowed to stamp out production flaws and regain the trust of regulators, airline customers and the public.

Next Thursday, Boeing leaders are set to meet with the Federal Aviation Administration to present the company’s plan to improve its quality control, the FAA said. The agency gave Boeing 90 days to complete the plan starting in late February.

Other problems have also sprung up, including a pause on deliveries of 737 Max planes to China to review batteries for the cockpit voice recorder. Boeing said in a statement that it is working with “our Chinese customers on the timing of their deliveries as the Civil Aviation Administration of China completes its review of batteries contained within the 25-hour cockpit voice recorder assembly unit.”

Earlier this month, the FAA said it opened a new probe into the 787 Dreamliner inspections after the company disclosed “misconduct” by some employees. The agency said it was looking into whether employees falsified records.

Parts shortages have also slowed deliveries of Dreamliners, Boeing has said. American Airlines last month said it would cut some international flights because of delays of the wide-body jets. Other carriers, including United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, said they had to scale back growth and hiring plans because of delayed Boeing jets.

Crude oil futures fell to three-month lows on Friday and are heading to a weekly loss as the summer driving season gets underway with the Memorial Day holiday.

U.S. crude oil hit an intraday low of $76.15, the lowest level since Feb. 26. Global benchmark Brent fell to $80.65, the lowest level since Feb. 8. The two benchmarks are on pace for a weekly loss of about 4% and 3%, respectively.

“Macroeconomic developments have been failing to provide meaningful support for oil, which has its own problems to deal with,” said Tamas Varga, analyst at oil broker PVM, pointing to Russia overproducing in April despite commitments to slash production along with other OPEC+ members.

OPEC and its allies, led by Russia, will hold a virtual meeting on June 2 to review production policy. A coalition of OPEC+ members is voluntarily holding 2.2 million barrels per day off the market to support prices.

“Next week’s OPEC meeting is widely expected to roll over the current production ceiling, especially now that oil prices are in a relentless downtrend,” Varga said.

“But it would probably not be enough to unambiguously brighten the mood, simply because there is nearly 6 mbpd of supply cushion attached to the seemingly oversupplied market,” the analyst said.

Angry that your favorite Red Lobster closed down? Wall Street wizardry had a lot to do with it.

Red Lobster was America’s largest casual dining operation, serving 64 million customers a year in almost 600 locations across 44 states and Canada. Its May 19 bankruptcy filing and closing of almost 100 locations across the country has devastated its legion of fans and 36,000 workers. The chain is iconic enough to be featured in a Beyonce song.

Assigning blame for company failures is tricky. But some analysts say the root of Red Lobster’s woes was not the endless shrimp promotions that some have blamed. Yes, the company lost $11 million from the shrimp escapade, its bankruptcy filing shows, and suffered from inflation and higher labor costs. But a bigger culprit in the company’s problems is a financing technique favored by a powerful force in the financial industry known as private equity.

The technique, colloquially known as asset-stripping, has been a part of retail chain failures such as Sears, Mervyn’s and ShopKo as well as bankruptcies involving hospital and nursing home operations like Steward Healthcare and Manor Care. All had been owned by private equity.

Asset-stripping occurs when an owner or investor in a company sells off some of its assets, taking the benefits for itself and hobbling the company. This practice is favored among some private-equity firms that buy companies, load them with debt to finance the purchases and hope to sell them at a profit in a few years to someone else. A common form of asset-stripping is known as a sale/leaseback and involves selling a company’s real estate; this type of transaction hobbled Red Lobster.

In recent years, private-equity firms have invested heavily in all areas of industry, including retailers, restaurants, media and health care. Some 12 million workers are employed by private equity-backed firms, or 7 % of the workforce. Companies bought out and indebted by private equity go bankrupt 10 times more often than companies not purchased by these firms, academic research shows. In a report this month, Moody’s Ratings said leveraged buyouts like those pursued by many private-equity firms drive corporate defaults higher and reduce the amounts investors recover when the companies are restructured.

Could college athletes really start getting paid directly by their schools, ending decades of acrimony over the issue?

The NCAA, along with the five largest college athletic conferences, announced Thursday an agreement to settle three antitrust suits brought by college athletes over having been deprived of financial gain by only receiving scholarships in exchange for their play.

Here’s how it all could work.

If approved by a California judge, the NCAA would pay out more than $2.7 billion in damages over the course of 10 years to current and former athletes that now form the so-called class of plaintiffs represented in the suit.

That group consists of 14,000 players who were enrolled as student-athletes from 2016 to 2020.

The settlement would also institute a 10-year revenue-sharing plan that would guarantee active players, collectively, up to 22% of their schools’ share of media broadcast and ticket sales. Reported estimates suggest that would initially equal more than $20 million a year per school in most instances — but that figure could increase as more lucrative TV deals are signed.

If approved, this plan would start in the fall of 2025.

Yahoo Sports first reported details of the potential settlement agreement.

Long a source of debate in American society, the issue of whether college athletes should be paid has started coming to a head in recent years. In 2021, athletes earned the right to profit from their own name, image and likeness (NIL), potentially turning some amateur players into overnight multimillionaires.

Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, for instance, the son of NFL Hall of Famer and current Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders, has NIL deals in place valued at $4.6 million, according to the NIL tracking site On3.

Before entering the WNBA, Caitlin Clark had NIL deals in place worth $3.1 million, according to On3 data.

For the top athletes, NIL deals likely will remain in some form — giving players the opportunity to earn additional money on top of the payments they’d be getting from schools.

‘Right now we are in a golden age for those players,’ said Darren Heitner, an attorney who specializes in sports law.

But it will be left to schools to divvy up exactly which players receive what amount of money — and there are concerns that the financial burden from the settlement agreement could actually hurt the budgets of less lucrative college athletic programs.

Paul Haagen, a law professor at Duke University, said the result could mean schools cutting programs outright that are already regularly losing money.

‘There’s going to be greater intensification and commercialization,’ Haagen said. ‘And the sports that can’t be commercialized will find it harder and harder to compete.’ 

The landmark 2021 NIL decision did not stop the threat of suits aimed at seeking further financial relief for players — claims the NCAA and its schools say have led them to the brink of a financial calamity.

“The settlement, though undesirable in many respects and promising only temporary stability, is necessary to avoid what would be the bankruptcy of college athletics,” Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins said in a statement Thursday.

The proposed settlement is thus a stop-gap effort to limit the damages the NCAA and its schools are staring down from lawsuits charging them with illicitly depriving athletes from financial gain, Heitner said.

‘They seemed to be losing case after case, so the exposure was there,’ he said.

Another complicating factor is Title IX — the federal statute that dictates amateur female athletes are entitled to the same rights as their male counterparts.

The NCAA has argued Title IX applies only to ‘opportunities’ and not things of monetary value.

With the new settlement in place, that argument could become the subject of further litigation, Heitner said.

‘If plaintiffs, and plaintiffs lawyers, believe there are credible claims that schools are not in compliance with Title IX, we could see schools start being sued,’ he said.  

The latest settlement will thus not still stop ongoing legal uncertainty for college athletics, he said.

But it does start the ball rolling for college athletes to start seeing direct payments for the first time.