FreeWheel Joins NBCUniversal as Instacart Reportedly Goes Up for Sale

FreeWheel will move to NBCUniversal when the spin-off company lists on the stock exchange next year, ending months of speculation about where Comcast's TV and video ad server would land. tipsheet.ai first reported the decision, citing internal Comcast communications, and FreeWheel confirmed it in a blog post.

Comcast announced in June that it would spin NBCUniversal into a separate public company while retaining a fifth of the ownership for its first year. FreeWheel, as a TV and video ad server, plausibly belonged with either side of the split. It will now sit inside NBCU.

"With advertising at the core of NBCUniversal, we believe closer alignment with ad technology will accelerate FreeWheel's mission on behalf of the premium video ecosystem," FreeWheel wrote in its post.

One reading of the move is that Comcast has tasted the programmatic ads business and is handing it back. There is precedent: AT&T unwound Xandr, and Verizon's Yahoo takeover produced the short-lived Oath spin-off plan and its "Take the Oath" tagline. Ari Paparo, who sold the DSP Beeswax to FreeWheel, disagrees. "I think the opposite. NBC really wants to own tech as part of their overall stack," he tweeted.

Why does an Instacart sale make sense now?

Retail media carries too many standalone platforms, and consolidation logic is tightening. Global brands such as Coca-Cola and Hershey log into hundreds of retailer interfaces for data they cannot obtain elsewhere. Criteo and other ad tech vendors contest the long tail of those networks, while the top of the market is primed for blockbuster deals under a Trump administration that is lenient, if not borderline indifferent, to acquisitions previous FTCs or DOJs might have challenged. Kroger and Albertsons, whose merger failed, probably wish they had waited.

Against that backdrop, The Information reports Instacart is up for sale. Instacart has reportedly held talks with Uber and DoorDash, though Uber has walked. DoorDash considered buying Instacart in 2021, when the grocery delivery service was ad-free, private and valued between $40 billion and $50 billion. Its public market cap now stands at $12 billion.

Either buyer would consolidate last-mile delivery and retail media. Uber launched its ad business in 2022 and passed a $1 billion run rate by 2024. DoorDash recorded its first billion-dollar ad year last year.

What did the Samsung TV hack actually reveal?

A viral weekend post on X reignited fears that smart TVs spy on their owners. A poster using the name log4j, who claims to be a cybersecurity researcher, says they reverse-engineered the code behind their $3,000 Samsung TV using ChatGPT and decompiling software. The hack surfaced what log4j called "PRIVACY HORROR": an always-on microphone listening for barking dogs or crying babies, reporting back to Samsung to serve ads.

log4j also shared an OpenAI email suspending the account for "Cyber Abuse," fueling suspicions of Big Tech circling the wagons. The reality is more mundane. Tech Radar reports the features appear in Samsung's consumer marketing, touted as "family and pet care" that notifies devices when a loved one seems in distress. Samsung discontinued the baby-listening feature last month after it could not tell whether a baby was crying on the TV or in real life. Samsung could still have been clearer that it sends the data to its servers, and for what purpose. For marketers, the episode shows how consumer-facing features turn sinister in public perception once linked to surveillance advertising.

In brief

• Pinterest named Magnite its preferred SSP in a new programmatic integration. [Adweek]
• Microsoft offered voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees, more than a quarter of its headcount, to balance AI investments. [CNBC]
• Walmart, McDonald's, Kroger and other chains face angry customers who believe prices are manipulated algorithmically. [WSJ]
• The NBA named Kalshi and Polymarket official prediction market partners and expanded its DraftKings deal. [ESPN]
• Lawmakers are examining how DraftKings and other gambling operators use AI and behavioral data to target customers based on previous losses. [NYT]
• Anthropic publicly filed its S-1, an early IPO step, with an expected valuation of $1.5 trillion or more. [The Information]
• Meta is expanding its video ambitions for TV as it chases YouTube and TikTok. [Bloomberg]

The FreeWheel decision signals that NBCU intends to own its ad tech through the spin-off, and the Instacart talks suggest the first big retail media consolidation may already be in motion.