Overall, those who suspected they were seeing a lot of AI ads were indeed correct! We’ll be keeping an eye out on future special events to see if the trend continues as we venture further into 2026!
Interestingly, the proportion of TV promos was much lower than our benchmark year (-27.6%) which is in alignment with the media landscape's shift towards streaming content. Movie promos though were up slightly (6.9%), as distributors seek to bolster their box office results.
Compared to the breakdown from the 2013 telecast, Automotive ads were down (-8.8%) while CPG (13.3%) and Online Services ads (+18.0%) were up significantly. From a creative perspective, there were more inspirational (+12.7%) and celebrity / athlete (+10.7%) spots in 2026.
Nearly 20% of ads mentioned or featured AI such as Anthropic (Claude), Ring and OpenAI. In particular the Ring ad stood out, with many calling out the ‘search party’ feature as a mass-surveillance capability hidden behind a heartwarming use case featuring finding a lost pet.
With over 124m viewers tuning in this year, Super Bowl LX was the second-most-watched game in Super Bowl history. A common conversation topic was the prevalence of ads featuring AI in some fashion - so we took a deeper look to see how the ad lineup stacked against benchmarks.
Looking for additions to your 2026 reading list? Consider John Malone’s ‘Born to be Wired’ which contemplates the evolving media industry and features data from Diesel Labs. Find it at your local bookstore today!
Get the gift of book data this holiday season! Diesel’s latest offering, trending book titles among reader communities across social platforms, is now available on our website. Try it today!
diesellabs.com/insights/sam...
This comprehensive suite of data products tracks trending engagement with literary titles across all major social and video media platforms. Turn the page on your old data streams with Diesel's new book coverage data, or contact support@diesellabs.com!
Diesel Labs is excited to announce we're expanding our media intelligence library with books coverage! Visit our blog for a complimentary October report: diesellabs.com/insights/sam...
Hope this helps ease the family pain! Keep the volume up with Diesel as we begin our end of year wrap up!
🐣Disney+: Daredevil: Born Again
🎈HBO Max: It: Welcome to Derry
🗞️Peacock: The Paper
🤑Paramount+: MobLand
📱Netflix: Adolescence
🎬AppleTV+: The Studio
👑Amazon Prime Video: House of David
Got stuck at the kids table again? Here are the top shows of 2025 by platform:
⚡Disney+: Thunderbolts*
🧛HBO Max: Sinners
🦖Peacock: Jurassic World Rebirth
🪂Paramount+: Mission: Impossible / Final Reckoning
😈Netflix: KPop Demon Hunters
🏞️AppleTV+: The Gorge
🤴Amazon Prime Video: Heads of State
Still avoiding Aunt Ruth’s mint jello casserole but not a subscriber to every streaming service? Here are the top movies released in 2025 by platform:
1️⃣Thunderbolts* (16.6M total engagements)
2️⃣A Minecraft Movie (9.6M)
3️⃣Captain America: Brave new World (9.5M)
4️⃣Sinners (9.2M)
5️⃣Superman (9.1M)
Worried about awkward family interactions this holiday season but not into football? Diesel’s got you covered! Here are the top 5 movies (based on audience engagement) from 2025 to put on as a way of avoiding more fly fishing stories from Uncle Larry:
Stop by TV of Tomorrow to check out our CEO @amidha.bsky.social's conversation with the ITV Doc Rick Howe! Topics include finding the next superstar from user generated content, turning data signals into actionable items and all the best that the media has to offer!
itvt.com/televisionat...
🐾🔦Is Good Boy an old dog learning new tricks in the industry? Time will tell. To fetch trends and insights, keep your nose to the ground with Diesel Labs!
The move from theatrical to digital release is particularly short for the three IFC / Shudder films, averaging 25.7 days between the two milestones compared to other 2025 films averaging 41.2 days. This strategy maintains momentum from the previous step throughout the release schedule.
Visualizing the release schedules of the films from festival moving forward reveals an interesting strategy at work. Once the films are acquired, the timeline from trailer drop to digital release is fairly condensed.
IFC and Shudder have a unique collaboration– both are child companies under AMC Networks (not to be confused with AMC Theatres), and have the ability to coordinate theatrical and streaming releases with dexterity.
It marks the 3rd theatrical-to-streaming release from IFC Films and Shudder after #LateNightWithTheDevil and #InAViolentNature. All 3 were acquired at or before film festivals, all theatrical releases, all eventually streaming on Shudder.
The film netted $2.3m in its domestic opening box office, just under Diesel’s projected $2.6M to $4.9M, with $6.3m total so far.
It's been roughly three weeks since #GoodBoy came, sat and stayed in the box office. An independent film made from the perspective of a haunted man’s dog, Good Boy was produced on a budget of $750k. How has it fared so far?
#GoodBoyMovie @shudder.com @ifcfilms.bsky.social #DataVisualization
🦋✨A butterfly flaps its wings, and we see change in the social media landscape! We’re excited to see how Bluesky soars from here. Keep your eyes on the skies with Diesel as we continue to drop insights from our Content Intelligence platform.
…is in stark contrast to the focus of Reality and Anime on X.
By looking at the top shows without Sports and Specials, the differences are even clearer. While Pro Wrestling and Animation are popular on both, the focus on Science Fiction / Action & Adventure on Bluesky…
A ranking of top content by category also helps illuminate how the two platforms differ in their attention to media topics, or in some cases like for “KPop Demon Hunters” where both audiences are unified in their interest levels.
Engagement with entertainment content happens in both “virtual town squares” but around different topics. Bluesky users tend to focus more on Science Fiction, Drama and Action & Adventure content while X users are more on the live side with Sports and Specials.
It’s been an eventful 1.5 years since #Bluesky opened public registration, and we now have enough engagement to start to look at how the new community differs from X / #Twitter. We took a deep look at how the two platforms react to topics within the media landscape.
#Infographics #DataVisualization
