Cheat Sheet: Connected TV platforms, ad-supported streamers pitch audience reach, original programming on first day of NewFronts

The first day of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s 2021 NewFronts event kicked off yesterday, with presenters giving a specific pitch: streaming TV reaches consumers that haven't bought into linear TV, which is declining. All this while cord-cutting is accelerating. Read more below.

• On the first day of NewFronts, connected TV platforms pitched the size of their footprints, and ad-supported streamers announced new original programming.
• For Digiday+ members, as the vaccination rate continues to rise in the United States, marketers here are feeling comfortable messaging around a return to normalcy.
• As governments aim to regulate social media to assuage problems with misinformation and election meddling, researchers are skeptical of restrictions in new political ad data from Facebook.
• Verizon Media posted its first quarter of year-on-year growth in four years in the fourth quarter of 2020. Its new owners, Apollo Global Management, could use the ad-tech infrastructure to deal the rest of its media assets a more favorable hand.
• In the last episode of the creator series, the Try Guys talk about allowing passion to guide their company's growth.
• Digiday caught up with Steve Sirich, general manager of the global advertising business at Microsoft, to hear how the company is pitching advertisers today and how work-from-home has impacted the company’s ad business.