What you need to know in advertising today

Comcast beat Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox in the battle for Sky after offering around 30 billion pounds ($39 billion) for the British broadcaster in a rare auction to decide the fate of the pay-television group.

US cable giant Comcast bid 17.28 pounds a share for control of London-listed Sky, versus an offer of 15.67 pounds a share offer by Fox, the Takeover Panel said in a statement shortly after final bids were made on Saturday.

To read more about the deal, click here.

In related news:

Comcast outbid Rupert Murdoch in $40 billion Sky deal - and it shows just how much of a threat streaming services are to cable companies. Some analysts think the deal was driven by the threat of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon.

In other news:

"The product still needs a lot of work": Ad execs say Instagram's IGTV has a lot to do after investigation exposes disturbing videos. A Business Insider investigation of Instagram's IGTV showed how rampant brand safety issues remain in digital video.

Google quietly started logging people into Chrome without their consent, and a security expert says it's terrible for privacy. When users login into a Google service, such as Gmail, Chrome will automatically sign the browser into their account without consent.

"Nearly every aspect of humanity will be impacted": Verizon and AT&T are banking on 5G to connect every device on the planet to the Internet. Analysts in a Cowen research note believe that IoT represents the biggest 5G opportunity for the carriers.

WPP is considering a merger between Young & Rubicam and digital-ad firm VML, with VML Chief Executive Jon Cook leading the combined business, the Wall Street Journal reports. The holding company's new CEO Mark Read is considering the consolidation to keep pace with the industry's digital shift.

Vox Media is expected to miss its $200 million 2018 revenue goal by more than 15%, the Journal reports. The publisher, valued at $1 billion in its last funding round, is the latest one to have struggled to live up to ambitious growth goals in a challenging online ad market.