CMO Today: Paramount Chief Wins Viacom Boardâ€™s Support

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CMO Today: Paramount Chief Wins Viacom Board's Support

By Mike Shields

Paramount CEO Brad Grey Erik Pendzich/Rex Shutterstock via Zuma Press

VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: It’s been a tough run at the box office for Paramount Pictures. After greenlighting recent flops like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Ben Hur,” Paramount Chief Executive Brad Grey was summoned to present a turnaround plan to parent company Viacom’s newly expanded board. The pitch last week was said to include an explanation of the confluence of factors leading to a money-losing year and the relaunch of the studio’s animation and television-production capabilities. It seems to have worked, at least for now. Mr. Grey and his team received a vote of confidence from Viacom’s interim CEO and board, including Vice Chair Shari Redstone, reports The Wall Street Journal. It’s still probably not a bad idea for Mr. Grey to land a hit soon. Viacom will decide in the coming weeks whether to pursue the sale of a minority stake in Paramount. Meanwhile, the broader dispute over Sumner Redstone’s media empire is one step closer to conclusion after he and his granddaughter Keryn Redstone on Friday laid out a tentative path to a settlement.

PAY UP PER CLICK: Several years back, a handful of big media moguls spoke out about what they thought was an under-examined battle between news organizations and Google. Mark Cuban called Google a “vampire,” accusing the search engine of essentially stealing news organizations’ work. Rupert Murdoch hinted that perhaps publishers should block their content from Google. Over time, the murmurs quieted down as more U.S. media companies came to realize they couldn’t live without search traffic. But things are different in Europe, which has adapted a much more pro-regulatory stance. The European Union is proposing legislation that would require news aggregators like Google to pay to list snippets of content from publishers on its site, reports The Wall Street Journal. It seems like a risky battle. While it could help media companies negotiate lucrative fees, there’s also the risk that Google shuts off the traffic fire hose by refusing to pay or display a publisher’s content in its search results. As Matthew Jones, a partner at intellectual property law firm EIP, put it: “This could hurt the content owner much more than Google.”

TRUMP CARD?: We’re just about two months away from Americans heading to the polls to pick a new president, and Republican candidate Donald Trump (who’s never lacked free media attention) is finally spending money on TV ads. It’s awfully late in the game, considering that Mr. Trump is trailing in nearly every poll and has been outspent by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton $68 million to $1.7 million from mid-June through Aug. 23, reports Bloomberg. The states Mr. Trump is spending cash in provides insight into where the candidate’s advisers think this campaign will be won and lost, and so far he’s heavily targeting Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio with broadcast TV ads. Meanwhile, a group of anti-Trump Republicans are set to roll out an ad campaign in a handful of key swing states, reports Politico. The five-figure campaign, which is surely unprecedented in recent American politics, urges Mr. Trump to drop out of the race.

VIDEO SLAYER: Many marketers claim to be “publishers,” but outside of a few exceptions like Red Bull, most brands aren’t necessarily so good at creating content. (To be fair, not all media companies are always great at it either.) So, it’s noteworthy when a web series funded by an advertiser actually attracts an audience and even rarer when such a show comes back for another season. “Carmilla,” a show inspired by an 1800s vampire novella and funded by Kimberly-Clark to promote the tampon brand U by Kotex, has generated over 40 million views on YouTube and it’s about to kick off its third season. While the show isn’t generating Emmy buzz just yet, it boasts of a rabid following on social media, helping Kimberly-Clark reach its target of young women who aren’t necessarily watching traditional TV in big numbers. The company’s executives say they have to be willing to experiment and not push their brand’s message too hard.

ELSEWHERE

Facebook has let go of a group of contract workers who handled the social network’s trending topics section, which is being turned over to a team of engineers who will rely on Facebook’s news algorithm to select topics. Allegations surfaced earlier this year that editors handing these trending topics actively suppressed content from conservative news sources. [Quartz]

Spotify is punishing artists who release songs and albums exclusively on other platforms like Apple Music by making their music hard to find on Spotify. [Bloomberg]

Charles Osgood is retiring from anchoring “CBS Sunday Morning” after 22 years. Mr. Osgood, who’s been at CBS for 45 years, will continue to produce “The Osgood File,” a daily news commentary show that is broadcast on the CBS Radio Network. [CBS News]

Tronc, the newspaper publisher formerly known as Tribune Publishing, has apparently made a counteroffer to Gannett’s third takeover proposal, indicating it may be open to a deal after months of rebuffing Gannett. [Politico]

Snapchat will begin dipping its toe into “behavioral ad targeting.” The company, which has been open about its desire to not be “creepy” when it comes to digital advertising, will start using data from people’s activity on the app to show them better ads. [Business Insider]

WhatsApp users may not be wild about the news last week that the messaging app would start sharing data with parent company Facebook for ad-targeting purposes. But advertisers are already considering ways they can use WhatApp to better communicate with consumers. [Digiday]

The right-leaning news website Breibart was once seen as something of a fringe player in politics. But ever since the site’s chairman was installed as Donald Trump’s campaign chief, the site’s profile has swelled. [NYT]

The Washington Post weighs in on what a Donald Trump news network could potentially look like if the candidate isn't elected. Hint: It would likely be positioned to the right of Fox News. [Washington Post]