We’re neck deep in ad news now, so let’s push on.  iSpot.tv has raised a $325 million private equity investment for its TV audience measurement service.  Previous funding totaled $58 million.  iSpot offers an alternative to Nielsen’s ratings, which is a good thing to do right now.

The next pavilion will feature marketers who expect automation to save them the trouble of designing good campaigns.  We’ll treat them nicely, because systems like Google’s one-click Performance Max are in fact taking over more of the job – and probably doing it better than the people they replace.  Performance Max, which finds the optimal mix of channels and ad formats, just added more campaign types and acquisition targets.

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.