The Digiday Podcast

Episode: ‘A year of loose ends’: Digiday editors share top takeaways from 2025
Date: December 23, 2025
Host: Kimiko McCoy, Senior Marketing Reporter, Digiday
Co-Host: Tim Peterson, Executive Editor, Video and Audio, Digiday
Guests: Sarah Jeudy (Managing Editor, Digiday), Seb Joseph (Executive Editor of News, Digiday)

Episode Overview

This special "Year in Review" episode brings together key Digiday editors to reflect on the tumultuous, fast-moving, and unfinished business developments that shaped 2025 across media, marketing, and tech industries. The hosts and guests unpack the year’s biggest stories—massive mergers and acquisitions, the unfulfilled demise of third-party cookies, AI’s disruptive rise, and ongoing shifts in the streaming wars. Central to their discussion is a sense that 2025 was “a year of loose ends," where industry-defining changes were set in motion but much remains unresolved heading into 2026.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. 2025: A Year of “Loose Ends”

• The hosts characterize 2025 as a period of transition, with many major initiatives begun but few concluded.
• Quote (Seb Joseph, 09:17): "Yeah, it's almost like the year of loose ends, right? That really does seem like...we're ending on the mother of all cliffhangers for every sort of big industry sort of shift at the moment."
• This theme is repeated across topics: mergers, AI evolution, regulatory changes, and more.

2. Streaming Wars & Media Industry Reshuffling

• M&A Mania: Paramount’s sale to Skydance, Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney’s new deal with OpenAI.
• The End of the Old Streaming Wars: Major players have consolidated power; Netflix is viewed as the dominant force.
  • Quote (Kimiko, 11:19): "I also think that the idea of the streaming wars this year has finally, absolutely been put to rest. I think the top players have absolutely revealed themselves."
• Rise of YouTube: The discussion acknowledges YouTube’s outsized share of TV screen watch time—greater than Disney’s combined properties.
  • Quote (Tim, 12:07): "YouTube. Most watch time of any streaming service, most watch time on TV screens of any company. It overtook Disney this year."
• Sports streaming grows: ESPN launches a standalone product; Fox and NBCUniversal (with Peacock) expand sports offerings.

3. Major Agency Consolidation & the Changing Agency Model

• Omnicom’s Acquisition of IPG: The landmark deal sparks debate over the viability of holding company (Holco) models.
  • Quote (Seb, 15:46): "It definitely in some ways really brought into sharp focus the kind of fundamental flaws inherent in the kind of Holco model. Right. The idea that it was never really about kind of clients needs. It was more about essentially kind of financial engineering..."
• Changing Dynamics: Agencies increasingly become tech-platform partners, pressured by ad tech giants like Google and Meta, and by in-housing trends among brands.
• AI & Agency Economics: A growing need to define how agencies charge for and license AI, with 2026 expected to be a reckoning year on these business models.
  • Quote (Sarah, 20:32): "There's no looser end in terms of how agencies are going to charge for AI use going into next year."

4. AI’s Ubiquity and Disruption

• AI shifts from buzzword to business foundational, disrupting media, marketing, and content creation.
• Notable Developments:
  • Disney and OpenAI’s landmark content licensing deal (potential to generate AI-driven Disney IP videos at scale).
  • Launches of AI video tools (e.g., Google Veo, OpenAI Sora, Meta Vibes).
  • Advertisers double down on AI-generated creative (Coca-Cola, NBA Finals AI ad).
• Ongoing lawsuits and IP debates muddy the economic and ethical future of AI in media.

5. Publishers, Traffic, and the ‘Zero-Click’ Crisis

• Declines in search referral traffic plague publishers, as Google’s AI-generated overviews and direct answers supplant traditional results.
• "Zero-click" era is described, with publishers unsure how to recoup lost ad revenue and content reach.
  • Quote (Seb, 24:44): "It's been the kind of big through line this year, hasn't it? The kind of year of the kind of zero click..."
• Giants like Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft launch new AI-licensing programs with major news publishers—some hailed as overdue, others criticized as still opaque and insufficient.

6. SEO, AEO, GEO: The Next Optimization Challenge

• Industry grapples with how to make content surface in AI-powered search and chat (Answer Engine Optimization, Generative Engine Optimization).
  • Quote (Tim, 28:21): "This is the year that gave us two new acronyms, AEO and GEO...Why can't we just expand the definition of SEO? It doesn't seem like anyone has like a real read...I haven't come across anyone who I felt like has given me a solid answer on it."
• Waiting for Google’s shifts (Gemini, AI mode in Chrome) to define new best practices.

7. Ad Tech & The Never-Ending Demise of the Third-Party Cookie

• The anticipated end of third-party cookies and implementation of Google’s Privacy Sandbox failed to materialize—again.
• Industry investment in new solutions met with repeated Google delays, fueling cynicism.
  • Quote (Seb, 38:36): "...Google had been so public about this kind of plan that it couldn't possibly sort of roll back. And ultimately it kind of did. It just gaslit the industry..."
• Antitrust cases (Google Search, Google Ad Tech) resolved with minimal impact so far; the true impact (if any) likely pushed to 2026.

8. The Rise of Amazon DSP & Trade Desk in Ad Tech

• Amazon’s DSP challenges the Trade Desk’s dominance, expanding from proprietary inventory to open web.
  • Quote (Tim, 40:23): "Amazon, with its DSP, added access to Netflix's inventory... Meanwhile, like, the trade desk didn't lose access to inventory, but it lost the exclusivity of its relationship with Walmart on retail media."
• Google plays a quieter role in DSP this year.

9. TikTok & the Perpetual State of Uncertainty

• Despite political drama and ongoing headlines, TikTok's US spinoff failed to materialize in 2025, echoing the repeatedly deferred “death” of third-party cookies.
  • Quote (Sarah, 35:11): "Is TikTok becoming the way of the third party cookie where we just talk it to death and then, you know, into oblivion?"

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tim (08:15): "As I've been thinking about 2025, I've been thinking of it as a setup year. But then... I described [last year] as a setup year. And maybe that's just how time works."
• Seb (06:25): "This year will definitely be one of those years that when we look back on it'll feel more consequential than it does kind of being in the midst of it."
• Kimiko (04:42): "2025 has... left me with whiplash, but this time it, like, it really did. My neck hurts. You know what I mean?"
• Sarah (27:01): "It still feels, and this is probably my background in media reporting showing, but it still feels like we are five years too late to this conversation."
• Seb (32:12): "2026 will be the year the Internet goes chat."
• Tim (35:04): "It feels like gaslighting. There's like a Mandela effect to the TikTok US."

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:52 – Table-setting: 2025 as a “year of loose ends”; what to expect.
• 03:34–06:25 – Roundtable opens: Editors reflect on the scope and hectic pace of news in 2025.
• 08:15 – "Setup year" vs. "unfinished" year: Why so much feels unclosed.
• 09:17–14:56 – Streaming wars, Netflix, Warner Bros., YouTube, and the end of the old paradigm.
• 15:46–21:54 – Omnicom/IPG, agency M&A, and the shifting agency model (AI, remuneration).
• 21:54–24:19 – The Disney/OpenAI deal as a microcosm for AI’s marketing transformation; how brands and agencies are reacting.
• 24:24–29:28 – Publishers’ traffic crisis; the new terrain of content licensing; chronic lack of transparency.
• 28:21–31:24 – AEO, GEO, and the future of optimization in an AI-driven search landscape.
• 32:12–33:49 – The rise of AI video and ‘AI slop’ in consumer feeds.
• 33:49–35:04 – TikTok’s US spinoff: still in limbo.
• 35:19–39:45 – The third-party cookie survives, Google antitrust cases stall, and industry exasperation.
• 39:54–41:23 – Amazon, Trade Desk, and the new ad tech rivalry.
• 41:32–End – Closing thoughts; looking ahead to a preview of 2026.

Summary Tone

Honest, self-aware, and laced with industry in-jokes and sustained skepticism. The editors mix exasperation (“No one knows what [AEO/GEO] means, but it’s provocative.” – Kimiko, 29:28) with measured optimism about future opportunities. Recurring humor and pop culture analogies (Star Wars, Mandela effect, "AI slop") lighten the weight of complicated industry issues.

This year-end episode is essential for anyone seeking a concise, insightful digest of 2025’s most important (and unresolved) media, marketing, and tech stories—as well as the industry’s mood of “waiting for the other shoe to drop” in 2026.