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Welcome to another edition of the Advertising and Media Insider newsletter, where we recap all the big stories we worked on this past week. If someone forwarded you this newsletter, sign up for your own here. Send me tips or feedback at [email protected]

It’s been a big week for Amazon advertising news. It’s pushing into video search ads with a forthcoming beta that agencies see as competitive with Google. Meanwhile, Lauren Johnson got her hands on a pitch deck Amazon’s been taking around ad agencies to sell OTT.

The key takeaways:

• Amazon is on a crusade to build a video advertising business to rival Roku, Hulu, and others, by ramping up app advertising in Amazon Fire, its OTT device; and its streaming service FreeDive.
• Its OTT advertising gives marketers a way to do interest-based targeting, whereas most of Amazon targeting has been based on product adjacency.
• Amazon is pitching its video viewers as high-income consumers.
• It’s aiming at YouTube by pushing brand safety and non-skippable ads.
• Amazon still lags Google’s ad tech, but it could just be a matter of time before it catches up.

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Here’s what else we’ve been reporting. (Read most of the articles here by subscribing to BI Prime; use promo code AD2PRIME2018 for a free month.)

Hulu said 65% of live sports viewers stick around to watch other shows – here’s why that mattersLivestreaming services have tough economics, so this was an interesting data point that Hulu shared on a panel. By getting people to stick around, Hulu collects more ad revenue because they’re more valuable as viewers of library content than of live content.

Some AT&T dealers say the company’s shifting sales approach is squeezing their businessThe rise of cord cutting pinches telecoms like AT&T, but the pain is also felt by the door-to-door dealers who historically made a living selling TV packages. Abby Jackson talked to some of those contractors about how they’re getting squeezed to the point of leaving the industry. As Abby reports, the pressure to make sales could also have a knock-on effect of fraudulent sales activities.

Apple dominates podcast listening, but iHeartMedia thinks it’s found a way around itPodcast listening is exploding, but Apple has a tight grip on how people listen to podcasts and, by extension, discover new ones. Podcasters are starting to go beyond cross-promotion and buy traditional media to get the word out. IHeartMedia, one of the top podcasting companies, is taking an innovative approach by using its radio stations to promote and air its podcasts – raising interesting questions about how big the audience for podcasts can get, and how much crossover there is between radio and podcasting.

Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi is courting big brands like P&G and Anheuser-Busch, seeking up-front ad deals for the streaming platformThe Hollywood exec is courting advertisers like Procter & Gamble and Anheuser-Busch InBev to advertise on his yet-to-be-launched mobile video streaming service, Quibi, and asking for prices one called “outrageous.” While Quibi first asked for an up-front commitment of $US25 million, said one source, that figure has now been whittled down to the $US15 million range, per another.

Here are other good stories from tech, media, and entertainment:

Netflix viewers who are 50 and older spend more of their time watching originals than their younger counterparts do

Facebook is ramping up its move to manage ad spend from millions of small and mid-size businesses with a new tool

TPG just raised $US1.6 billion for a tech-focused fund after bets on Uber, Spotify, and other private companies paid off big – and shows some of the problems with current funding models

Instagram is ramping up its pitch for direct-response ad dollars as its stories ads move into Facebook and Messenger

The investor behind companies like eBay and Allbirds says IPOs give startups the freedom to escape domineering VCs

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