So This Happened…2nd April 2025
TikTok Shop head of UK says European expansion is a ‘natural step’ for growth
Why It Matters:
TikTok Shop has officially launched in Germany, France, and Italy, bringing its seamless social commerce experience to 72.1 million additional European users.
This expansion is significant as social commerce continues to gain momentum—73% of global shoppers have purchased through social platforms, with 62% planning to increase their social commerce activity.
TikTok's "Discovery e-commerce" approach enables seamless in-app purchasing through content-driven discovery, directly challenging Amazon's dominance by merging entertainment and frictionless shopping in ways traditional marketplaces cannot replicate.
The expansion of "Fulfilled by TikTok" logistics creates a potential retail media powerhouse connecting content, commerce, and fulfilment—offering brands new opportunities to engage authentically with consumers in the increasingly blurred space between entertainment and shopping.
QVC Cuts 900 Staffers in Pivot to ‘Live Social Shopping’
Why It Matters:
QVC Group's 900 layoffs and operational consolidation signal a decisive shift toward "live social shopping" that reflects today's evolving retail landscape.
While QVC's Roku FAST channel generated $120M in Q1 2024, the company recognises that future growth lies beyond traditional TV. This aligns with industry forecasts showing connected commerce spending reaching $112.6B in 2025, growing at 18.7% CAGR since 2021.
Surprisingly, QVC's decades of expertise in live shopping demonstrations didn't translate to early dominance in digital live commerce. Despite pioneering the model, they've been outpaced by social platforms like TikTok and Instagram where live shopping has flourished. This late pivot reveals how legacy brands can struggle with digital transformation.
Sport draws nearly a billion hours of viewing, while nearly half of under 35s tune into podosphere for news
Sky
Why It Matters:
Sky's latest data shows UK viewers consumed 16 billion hours of content in 2024, highlighting major shifts in how media is being consumed:
📺 Audiences are increasingly abandoning scheduled broadcasting in favor of on-demand options across multiple devices.
⚽ Despite the general shift to on-demand, live sport maintains its powerful draw, accounting for 950 million hours of viewing in just six months - demonstrating its unique ability to gather large, engaged audiences simultaneously.
🔊 News consumption continues to evolve, with 1 in 4 UK adults now turning to podcasts weekly for updates - a figure that jumps to 45% among viewers under 35.
📱 The technology powering these changes is clear: 71% of viewers primarily watch content on smart TVs, while 66% use mobile devices, highlighting how device flexibility is reshaping when, where and how content is consumed.
These insights underscore how technology is fundamentally reshaping audience expectations toward a more personalized, on-demand media landscape where content discovery increasingly happens across multiple touchpoints.
Roblox Launches Rewarded Video Ads, Partners With Google to Scale Immersive Advertising
Roblox
Why It Matters:
In an exciting development for Roblox, Rewarded Video ads will be available programmatically through Google Ad Manager, signaling a major shift in the advertising landscape. As traditional digital channels become increasingly saturated and expensive, immersive gaming platforms represent a new frontier for reaching elusive younger audiences. Additionally, this makes immersive ads far more accessible for brands, offering a frictionless experience for a difficult to reach audience.
The early results speak volumes:
80%+ video completion rates (beating traditional digital benchmarks)
Direct access to millions of Gen Z users through familiar buying tools
Full measurement suite from Nielsen, DoubleVerify, IAS, and others
Seamless integration with existing media plans and workflows
As retail media expands beyond traditional platforms (growing from $18.8B in 2020 to $54.9B in 2024), immersive gaming environments power ahead as a critical fan engagement tool, as well as building monetisation opportunities.
YouTube could be worth $550 billion as analyst crowns platform “New King of All Media”
Why It Matters:
MoffettNathanson's recent analysis values YouTube at $550B as a standalone business—nearly 30% of Alphabet's entire market cap.
Key highlights:
Record 11.6% of all TV viewing time in February
TV viewing up 53% over two years
YouTube TV now 4th largest pay TV provider with 8M+ subscribers
Set to surpass Disney as largest media company by revenue in 2025
What's driving this? YouTube has succeeded in expanding beyond its youth-oriented roots, with viewers 50+ now representing 35%+ of its audience. The platform has successfully diversified revenue streams through subscriptions, captured viewing time across devices and employed a diversified and aggressive distribution strategy, very successfully riding the wave of CTV growth as a critical and dominant app on the smart TV UX.
Following on from last week’s stories around younger consumers choosing creator content over traditional media, and the YouTube creators holding their own upfronts, the lesson for media companies is becoming increasingly clear: platforms that effectively integrate content discovery, engagement and monetisation will continue capturing disproportionate value in the evolving content commerce ecosystem.
