Media & Marketing

Xinhua has published the full text of the 'AI + Media' Global Development Annual Blue Book (2026), a systematic review of how artificial intelligence is being applied across the global media industry's production, distribution and governance, and the trends shaping it. The report offers media organizations a reference framework for planning intelligent transformation strategies. For media professionals and marketers, such developments are a direct signal of shifting channel value.

MNTN's research finds that young viewers have not abandoned TV advertising altogether — what matters is whether the ads feel relevant to them. Based on viewing-behavior data, the study offers guidance on how brands can improve ad memorability when buying connected TV. Shifts in media and marketing data often precede changes in brand budgets, so they are worth tracking closely.

Chinese title: 年轻人也在看电视广告：相关性让广告被记住

Nielsen data shows Netflix pushed its catalog horror series 'From' to No. 1 among U.S. TV households, based on viewing through October 25. The figures reflect how effectively streaming platforms use older titles to drive viewing time. For media professionals and marketers, such developments are a direct signal of shifting channel value.

Chinese title: 尼尔森：Netflix将片库恐怖剧《From》推至全美电视家庭收视第一

Nielsen data shows 31.2 million viewers watched television coverage of the 2026 U.S. midterm elections. The audience size reflects how major political events drive viewing of traditional TV news, and it is a core metric for media assessing the reach of election coverage. For media professionals and marketers, such developments are a direct signal of shifting channel value.

New MIDiA data shows consumers are more accepting of AI-generated music than they say they are. The gap between what people say and what they do carries important implications for music platforms' content strategies and for the industry's attitude toward AI-created work. Shifts in media and marketing data often precede changes in brand budgets, so they are worth tracking closely.

Chinese title: MIDiA新数据：消费者对AI音乐的接受度比承认的更高

Nielsen's The Record report covers U.S. audio listening trends in the third quarter of 2026, including changes in time spent with broadcast radio, podcasts and streaming audio. The data is a core reference for the audio industry in tracking how audiences are shifting. Shifts in media and marketing data often precede changes in brand budgets, so they are worth tracking closely.

Chinese title: 《The Record》：2026年三季度美国音频收听趋势

Tinuiti has compiled 2026 holiday shopping statistics covering consumer spending plans, the use of artificial intelligence in shopping, and purchase timing. The data gives brands a basis for planning their year-end marketing calendar. For media professionals and marketers, such developments are a direct signal of shifting channel value.

Chinese title: 2026年假日购物数据：支出、AI与时机

MIDiA's article examines how language diversity affects the music industry's international expansion: the old model of exporting finished content from mature markets is breaking down, and growth in non-English-language music could open new markets. For content platforms and record labels, localization is turning from a nice-to-have into a precondition for growth.

Chinese title: 语言能否解锁音乐的下一个增长市场？

Samba data shows the Paramount+ series 'Tulsa King' topped the weekly streaming viewership chart for the week through October 25, with a strong performance from its fourth season. Third-party viewing data is a commonly used supplement when assessing how popular streaming content is.

Chinese title: Samba数据：《塔尔萨之王》登顶当周流媒体收视

Ahrefs has mapped all of OpenAI's licensing partnerships with publishers: once a publisher licenses its content, ChatGPT surfaces summaries of it, and the article also counts how often each publisher is cited. For the media industry, the list quantifies the scale of cooperation between AI platforms and content owners.

Chinese title: OpenAI的每一家出版商合作，以及ChatGPT引用它们的频率

Nielsen has launched its first local college basketball fandom index, ranking fan engagement in men's college basketball across markets. Fan enthusiasm data directly affects broadcast and sponsorship pricing, and the index gives local media and brands a new evaluation tool.

Chinese title: 球场之外：尼尔森发布首个地方大学篮球球迷指数

Nielsen data reveals festive-season advertising trends in Malaysia, including rising digital spending and consumer insights, offering brands a basis for more precise media planning during holiday marketing. Festive spending is concentrated in Southeast Asia, making this data especially useful for regional marketing teams.

Chinese title: 尼尔森最新数据：马来西亚节日广告趋势与更聪明的媒介规划

Ahrefs analyzed 260 million AI prompts to study how strongly different types of brand mentions correlate with AI visibility. Research on this scale gives brands actionable evidence about correlations as they compete for exposure in the era of generative search.

Chinese title: 哪类提及与AI可见度的相关性最强？（分析2.6亿条AI提示）

Drawing on observations across seven AI platforms and nine verticals, Tinuiti's article argues that most brands are watching the wrong signals when monitoring AI citations. Visibility in AI-generated answers is becoming a new marketing battleground, and the piece helps teams refocus measurement on what matters.

Chinese title: 谁决定AI引用什么？多数品牌盯错了信号

Research cited by HubSpot shows 98% of marketing teams already use AI to some extent, yet only 10% report transformative results — and AI maturity explains the gap. For marketing organizations rolling out AI, these numbers offer a realistic benchmark for self-assessment.

Chinese title: 营销中的AI成熟度：研究揭示了什么

Nielsen's August edition of The Gauge shows television viewing cooling as sports entered their offseason and schools reopened. YouTube continued to lead the TV market with a 15.8% share, Disney returned to second place among media distributors, and the post-summer share landscape reshuffled across platforms.

Chinese title: 尼尔森8月收视报告：体育休赛与开学季让电视收视降温

Drawing on its 'Defining Entertainment Superfans' report, MIDiA notes that fans are not a monolith but a set of distinct archetypes defined by how they engage and how active they are. Understanding how different fan groups behave is the first step for entertainment brands in converting traffic into long-term revenue.

Chinese title: 解锁粉丝经济，先认识这几类粉丝原型

Nielsen extends last year's observation that horror content was quietly taking up a growing share of viewing around Halloween: its presence on television is still strengthening, and this year the trend is backed by viewing data. Thriller content is shifting from a seasonal slot into a stable year-round viewing category.

Chinese title: 恐怖片继续统治电视：尼尔森收视趋势续篇

Nielsen data shows the NBA's just-concluded regular season set a 13-year high in average viewership across broadcast and streaming, up 35% year on year. Behind the strong rebound is the spread of fan culture, and Nielsen's analysis breaks down how that enthusiasm converts into measurable viewing behavior.

Chinese title: NBA球迷热情：收视创13年新高背后的球迷现象

Nielsen data shows Polish broadcaster Polsat claimed the top spot in Poland's content distributor rankings for the first time in 2026, driven mainly by live volleyball coverage. Live sports remains traditional television's strongest defense against streaming, and this ranking shift confirms it once again.

Chinese title: Polsat登顶波兰内容分发商排行榜

Horowitz Research's 2026 study finds that ethnic representation still matters to Black audiences, but mere on-screen presence is no longer enough — viewers want more varied and fresher culturally relevant content. For content owners, the quality and freshness of diverse storytelling are becoming key to holding audiences.

Chinese title: Horowitz研究：文化相关 content 需要更多样、更新鲜

Basis's latest survey maps AI use in marketing in 2026: adoption rates, the arrival of agents, how return on investment is measured, and AI's impact on marketing roles and team structures. Marketing is among the first functions where generative AI has scaled, and the data offers a useful point of comparison.

Chinese title: 调查：2026年营销人如何使用AI

Writing for its 2026–2033 global music forecasts, MIDiA notes that the global music market will keep growing, but forecasting average revenue per user (ARPU) has become more difficult — and more important — than ever. Shifts in user mix and payment models mean old models increasingly risk under- or over-estimating the market.

Chinese title: 展望2033：预测ARPU为何从未如此之难、又如此重要

MIDiA's Podcast Market Shares 2025 report shows global podcast platforms reaching nearly 1 billion monthly users (965.4 million in total, in the fourth quarter of 2025). The boom is pushing the market toward the billion-user mark, intensifying competition for share and expanding room for advertising monetization.

Chinese title: 全球播客市场逼近十亿用户

Kantar's BrandZ ranking of Italy's most valuable brands in 2026 is led by utility company Enel, a sign that market confidence is returning. BrandZ ranks brands on financial value and consumer perceptions, and the ranking's annual changes offer a window on Italian brands' competitiveness and consumer sentiment.

Chinese title: Enel登顶意大利2026年BrandZ排行榜，市场信心回归

Gower Street reports that September closed out the best-performing quarter of the decade at the global box office, with $2.1 billion in global ticket sales for the month (including a slightly soft performance in China). The strong third quarter sets the tone for full-year box office.

Chinese title: 9月票房收官：全球影市迎来十年来最好季度

Advertiser Trends cites forecasts suggesting that subscription growth in streaming may be hitting its ceiling, with platforms turning to free, ad-supported tiers for new growth. Free tiers expand audiences while giving advertisers new inventory, potentially marking the next stage in streaming's business model.

Chinese title: 流媒体的下一步：更多免费层级

Nielsen's The Gauge data shows South Korean television viewing is still dominated by broadcasters and pay channels, which account for 70% of total viewing, even as streaming viewing continues to grow. South Korea is one of the fastest markets for streaming penetration, making the resilience of traditional TV's 70% share worth comparing with other markets.

Chinese title: 尼尔森《The Gauge》：韩国电视收视仍由传统电视主导，流媒体持续增长

Edison Podcast Metrics data from SSRS shows the platform weekly podcast listeners use most has changed hands in recent years. Shifts in platform leadership directly affect podcast distribution and monetization strategies, and the tracking data pinpoints where listeners are actually gathering.

Chinese title: 播客收听第一平台易主

Kantar BrandZ data shows UK brands rebounding in overall value to a record high. BrandZ assesses brand equity on financial value and brand contribution, and the recovery of the UK brand group reflects consumer confidence and domestic brand competitiveness improving in tandem.

Chinese title: 英国品牌价值反弹，创历史新高

Kantar has published Media Reactions 2026, aimed at helping marketers move from more signals to clearer media decisions. The annual study tracks the gap between how consumers and marketers view media channels, and this year's focus is how to judge a channel's true value amid signal overload.

Chinese title: 凯度《Media Reactions 2026》：从更多信号到更清晰的媒体决策

Drawing on its SAGE ad measurement data, iSpot has published insights on celebrity impact in NFL advertising: as TV ad costs rise, brands increasingly value real audience response and purchase signals. Whether celebrity endorsements are worth their premium, the performance data offers a basis for assessment.

Chinese title: iSpot：NFL顶级广告的名人效应洞察

Advertiser Trends' streaming TV report notes that sports fans have never had so many ways to watch, yet never found it so hard to locate a game. Fragmented viewing entry points are both a user pain point and a placement problem for advertisers: viewers who cannot find a game are viewers ads cannot reach.

Chinese title: 体育迷找不到比赛在哪播，广告主也跟着遭殃

Edison Research (SSRS) has studied the relationship between podcast hosts and listeners for years: a series of surveys shows hosts are central to listener trust and loyalty. The analysis, titled 'Hands Off My Host, AI,' cautions the industry that as AI-generated content arrives, it should not first disturb the human touch listeners value most.

Chinese title: 别让AI碰我的主持人：播客信任研究

MIDiA observes that demand for shared, live 'watching together' experiences has grown markedly this year: the UK finale of The Traitors drew 9.4 million live viewers in January. In the streaming-on-demand era, the communal experience of watching in sync has become scarce, and livestreaming may become a new battleground for platforms competing for attention.

Chinese title: 观众渴望连接感，直播是答案吗？

Bloomberry analyzed a sample of 15,000 advertisers six months after ChatGPT ads launched, asking who is buying them. OpenAI says the business has reached $1 billion in scale, and the changing mix of advertisers offers first-hand material for observing how AI platforms are commercializing.

Chinese title: 谁在买ChatGPT广告？15,000个广告主样本分析

Horowitz Research finds that for Latinx viewers, free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) is no longer just a supplement but is starting to replace paid streaming as the main choice. Whether such services stay, however, ultimately depends on the viewing experience keeping up — shortcomings in content and experience would push users back.

Chinese title: 免费流媒体正替代付费流媒体，成为拉丁裔观众的选择

MIDiA data shows global music publishing revenue reached $12.2 billion in 2025, up 9.6% year on year, with major publishers growing faster than independents. Catalog assets are becoming a key revenue source, and streaming's share of publishing revenue is set to keep rising through 2033.

Chinese title: 2025年全球音乐版权收入达122亿美元，大厂跑赢独立公司

Nielsen streaming data shows that ahead of the new season of FX's American Horror Story, U.S. viewers had spent the equivalent of 13,000 years watching the series in total. It was the show's return after a 29-month gap — the longer the wait, the more substantial the long-tail viewing of the existing catalog.

Chinese title: 美国观众看《美国恐怖故事》累计花了相当于13,000年

Edison Research data widens the picture of in-car audio: earlier data showed that listeners aged 13 to 34 gave AM/FM radio most of their ad-supported audio time in the car. This installment maps listening composition across groups in mobile settings, showing radio's in-car position is more secure than it might seem.

Chinese title: 移动中的收听：车载音频格局再观察

MIDiA research finds young people are spending less time listening to music, with the decline in music's share of teenagers' time especially marked: weekly listening hours have continued to fall. With short video and other formats taking a growing share of the attention economy, the music industry faces competition not just from platforms but for time itself.

Chinese title: 音乐在注意力经济中正在输掉时间

Basis analyzes the mismatch between consumer time and ad spending: common sense says advertisers should spend where people spend their time, yet in practice the two rarely line up. The gap between time share and budget share marks both a planning pitfall and an opportunity for incremental gains.

Chinese title: 消费者时间与广告支出的鸿沟说明什么

MIDiA compares Threads and X: in a September interview, Mark Zuckerberg said Threads' scale was approaching and even catching up with X. Differences in algorithmic logic and cross-platform strategy will shape the race, and MIDiA breaks down each platform's strengths and weaknesses.

Chinese title: Threads对X：算法卖点与跨平台打法的竞争

iSpot reviews television advertising in Week 1 of the 2026 NFL regular season: the opening games included a Super Bowl rematch, a flood of new ads debuted, and tech newcomers' ads stood out. Week 1 sets the tone for sports marketing all year, and the measurement data ranks which brands made the most noise.

Chinese title: iSpot：NFL第一周广告赢家，科技新面孔靠广告得分

MIDiA research finds 42% of radio listeners aged 20 to 34 tune in to discover new music, showing Gen Z and younger Millennials are returning to radio to find music. The value of human curation stands out in the age of algorithmic recommendation, and radio's discovery function is one streaming has not fully replaced.

Chinese title: Z世代与年轻千禧一代回到广播发现音乐

Edison Podcast Metrics data shows weekly podcast listeners rank the factors they care about when choosing a show in a clear order. Understanding what listeners use to choose programs is the basis for podcast creators' and platforms' content and recommendation decisions, and the data quantifies those selection criteria.

Chinese title: 听众选播客时到底在意什么

MIDiA's series on its 2026–2033 global music forecasts looks at the fan economy accelerating. As streaming matures, more growth comes from fans' deeper engagement and direct spending, and the medium-term forecasts map the next shift in the music industry's revenue structure.

Chinese title: 展望2033：粉丝经济加速前进

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has raised its 2026 outlook, lifting its forecast for U.S. ad spending growth to 12.3% year on year: a strong first half raised expectations for the full year. The forecast is a widely used barometer of advertising health, and the pace of digital ad spending is visible in it.

Chinese title: IAB上调2026年美国广告支出预测至增长12.3%

An Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) consumer survey finds people want AI shopping recommendations to include perspectives from trusted creators. AI is becoming an everyday shopping companion, helping consumers research products, compare options and make decisions, but purely algorithmic recommendations still need human experience to earn trust.

Chinese title: IAB：消费者希望AI购物推荐包含可信创作者的视角

Gower Street reports global box office reached $4.645 billion in August — the highest August on record and the highest-grossing single month of the decade. The strong summer season has lifted the global film market to a new level, and the recovery's strength is clearest in these monthly figures.

Chinese title: 8月全球票房创纪录：十年单月最高