Bell Media Studios buys majority of Pinewood Toronto Studios

Bell Media Studios announced Thursday it had acquired a majority stake in Pinewood Toronto Studios, which will now be run by Nanci MacLean, head of Bell Media Studios. Terms of the acquisition (made in partnership with Comweb Studio Holdings) were not disclosed.

A lot of shows airing on Bell-owned properties have been filmed at the massive facility: The Expanse, Killjoys and Orphan Black among them. The 33-acre facility has hosted plenty of Hollywood films on its giant stages too, such as Molly’s Game, the Oscar-winning Room and It.

Facebook ends third-party data targeting

Facebook shuttered its Partner Categories Wednesday, ending the program that allowed third-party data providers to offer targeting services on the social platform. As of Sept. 30, brands will only be able to use data owned by Facebook or their own first-party data. The move ends a longstanding service used by companies such as Experian and Acxiom.

Partner Categories was not available in Canada, but its shuttering will likely have a significant impact on those third-party data players that many brands work with internationally.

“While this is common industry practice, we believe this step, winding down over the next six months, will help improve people’s privacy on Facebook,” the company said in a brief statement announcing the closure.

LinkedIn adds new video options to its ad product lineup

LinkedIn’s Sponsored Content and Company Page programs now offer video options for B2B advertisers. The former adds native video options for positioning in user news feeds. The latter allows companies to post and share video content about their company (or whatever subject they feel will draw prospective applicants to their page).

LinkedIn says users spend three times as much time watching video as as they do engaging with static sponsored content. It conducted a beta test of sponsored video content with 700 advertisers since October.