With its women’s sports franchises leading the way, E.W. Scripps generated higher volume in the upfront market.

In addition to its string of local TV stations, Scripps owns national networks including Ion, Bounce, Court TV and Scripps News.

Brian Norris, who oversees all ad sales at Scripps as chief revenue officer told B+C that market demand for live sports helped Scripps lock in a low-single-digit increase in volume, which was better than similar-sized companies without women’s sports did.

In a market marked by lower prices on a cost-per-thousand viewers basis, Scripps saw higher prices for sports (the gains weren’t quite NFL-sized), flat pricing for entertainment and higher prices to reach multicultural audiences.

“The upfront played out just the way we wanted it to,“ Norris said. “Probably a little better than we even anticipated.”

Scripps used its women’s sports franchises to bring new advertisers into its huddle. Advertisers were looking at women’s sports as a way to reach audiences that are balanced from a gender perspective and a multicultural perspective.

Almost 50% of Scripps’ WNBA audiences are multicultural, Norris added.

“They're getting the benefit of an incredibly diverse audience but also an audience that has the ability to spend against their products,” he said.

Norris said Scripps made deals with two dozen new advertisers in the upfront.

There were big advertisers in the automotive, alcohol, insurance, travel and telco. Norris said that 25% of its new advertisers were either small or medium-sized businesses or direct-to-consumer brands.

Norris said a focus of Scripps’s upfront was to “democratize this content for all advertisers.” The company formed a special team to interact with SMBs and its connected TV inventory is available on most programmatic platforms.

Buyers also wanted streaming CTV inventory, and sales grew 70% in the upfront, “That was largely driven by new business and sports,” Norris said. 

But women’s sports was the biggest deal for Scripps. 

The WNBA, enjoying record ratings, recently signed new rights deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon worth $2.2 billion over 11 years. Scripps has WNBA rights for one more season after the current season.

“What we've done for them is unlock new value for them in terms of unprecedented reach via our OTA network,“ Norris said.

Ion had its most-watched WNBA game every August 31, when the Chicago Sky faced the Indiana Fever with Caitlin Clark. It averaged 1.6 million viewers, peaking with 1.92 million.  

“Whether it’s over the top, over the air cable or streaming, we are giving the WNBA and the NWSL access to audiences representing growth to both groups,” he said. “And so we’re optimistic that we will that we will get a deal done with the WNBA.” 

Looking forward to the rest of the year, Norris said sports will continue to be a focus and advertisers will be attracted to CTV for its ability to target audiences.

“It’s clear to me and clear to Scripps that advertisers have choices more choices than they likely have ever had,” Norris said.

"What we want to do is provide value beyond just price. We want to provide value beyond just a commoditized offering,” he said. “ We do that with service, we do that with creativity and we do that by providing a product that is differentiated in the marketplace.”

The television industry’s shift to streaming could be seen in the upfront advertising market, where gains in streaming were enough to more than offset declines in traditional broadcasting and cable.

Bottom line: Commitments to buy primetime advertising in the 2024-25 TV season rose 8% to $29.5 billion, according to a preliminary estimate by Media Dynamics. That figure includes the relatively new entrants into the TV market, such as Netflix and Amazon.

The increases came as media buyers were able to wrest lower prices on a cost-per-thousand viewers (CPM) basis.

As expected, linear ad commitments were down 3.7% to $18.4 billion. 

For the broadcast networks, volume fell 3.5% to $9.3 billion. 

For the cable networks, volume dropped 4.8% to $9.1 billion, a smaller drop than one might have expected considering that Warner Bros. Discovery just took a $9 billion writedown on its cable networks business.

Strong demand for sports kept linear ad volume from falling more, Media Dynamics said.

Streaming volume jumped 35% to $11.1 billion, topping either broadcasting or cable for the first time.

Pricing fell across the board. For primetime on broadcast, CPMs dropped 5.6% to $45.35. On cable, the decline was 6.8% to $20.60. 

It was the second year in a role that upfront prices fell, the first time that’s happened. 

Streaming CPMs dropped 16.7% to $29.50.

Media Dynamics said that with streaming replacing traditional TV, advertisers were determined to reduce pricing for streaming to levels more comparable to TV.  The were helped by a big increase in supply of streaming inventory with Amazon Prime Video entering the ad market in a big way and the proliferation of free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels.

The upfront includes more than just primetime, Media Dynamics noted. Adding in the other dayparts, advertisers are expected to spend $45 billion to $50 billion in the upfront, leaving $10 billion to $12 billion for the scatter market, in which advertising time is bought just before it is expected to air, usually without ratings guarantees.

As most of the major media companies declared that they were done with their upfront sales, they cited increases in streaming and digital and strong demand for sports.

Netflix said that it closed its upfront with sales that were up 150% from the year before.

The streaming leader entered the advertising business just last year and got off to a halting start, slowing building the number of subscribers to its ad-supported tier and seeking prices higher than a saturated market would bear. Top sales execs left.

The year’s upfront built on a small base–the company previously said advertising wouldn’t be a "primary revenue driver" in 2025–but Netflix’ president of ad sales Amy Reinhard said the company’s upfront results were “in line with our expectations.”

Reinhard said that marketers in the consumer packaged goods, tech & entertainment, auto, quick-service restaurant and retail business all made commitments. 

She also said that Netflix drew sponsors tied to some of its most popular shows.

For example, L’Oreal, Pure Leaf, Amazon Audible, Puig, Booking.com, Stella Artois and Hilton have signed on as international on-screen title sponsors for Season 3 of Bridgerton.

When Emily In Paris returns, LVMN, Coty, Gucci, Kaiku Caffee Latte, Aeromexico, L’Oreal, Google and Rakuten will be on board.

Netflix also has deals lined up for Squid Game, Wednesday, Outer Banks, Happy Gilmore 2, Ginny  & Georgia and Love is Blind.

“Our advertising clients remain excited about our highly engaged audience and the variety and quality of our programming,” Reinhard said.

Reinhard said that Netflix is offering advertisers new ways to buy ads on the streamer.

Marketers can set up private marketplace programmatic deals directly with Netflix through The Trade Desk, Google’s Display & Video 360 or Xandr–the Microsoft unit that had been Netflix’s exclusive partner when it started selling ads.

Google’s Campaign Manager and Innovid can be employed for impression verification joining DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, which monitor campaigns for fraud and viewability.

“we’ve been executing multiple programmatic campaigns with advertisers such as Expedia, Ford, T-Mobile, Mercedes-Benz, Novartis, and American Eagle,” Reinhard said.

The programmatic private marketplace buys are currently available in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Mexico.  

Netflix also said it has launched measurement a relationship with Barb's Advance Campaign Hub in the UK and in the fall with offer campaign performance metrics from NielsenOne, Lucid (or Cint), EDO, NCSolutions, Kantar, and Affinity Solutions for all buy types.

“Over the last few months, we’ve hit great milestones for our ads business including closing another successful upfront market, building and implementing an expanded programmatic suite, enhancing our global measurement capabilities, and securing impactful global ad campaigns,” Reinhard said. “We’ll continue to improve the Netflix ads plan to ensure our members are delighted by the experience while simultaneously creating solutions that deliver results for our marketers, putting brands at the center of the best shows and films in the world, to a highly valuable and engaged audience.”

Paramount Global said that it sold $1 billion in commitment to buy streaming advertising in the upfront market.

Speaking on Paramount’s second-quarter earnings call Thursday, Chris McCarthy, one of the company’s three CEOs, said he was pleased with the upfront results,
“particularly in the context of the evolution of the ad market and the scale of new entrants.”

McCarthy said that linear volume trends were “in line” with last year, and pricing on a cost-per-thousand viewers (CPM) basis were up on a bended basis, with sports and broadcast showing strength.

(Paramount took a $6 billion write down on its cable business and 2Q ad revenue for its traditional TV business was down 11%)

While a flood of new streaming inventory was expected to depress pricing, McCarthy called the digital marketplace healthy for Paramount.

Also Read: Paramount Pitches Performance of Programming, Ad Tech (Upfronts)

With our mix of pay and free, we offer the most efficient reach across premium video,” he said.

On the earnings call, McCarthy said that Paramount would be implementing its plan to cut costs by $500 million, partly by reducing its work force by 15% by the end of the year.

He added that Paramount is in active discussion about potential strategic partnerships in streaming.

The company is also looking to sell off some assets.

“While we have strong brands and businesses, we must reshape our portfolio to best compete in the future,” McCarthy said. “The assets under consideration are undeniably strong with exciting futures ahead, but will be better served on their own or as the centrepiece of another business.”

TelevisaUnivision said it completed its upfront advertising sales, with a record number of advertisers making commitments to the big Spanish-language broadcaster.

The demand from a larger number of clients contributed to a single-digit increase in dollar volume and higher prices on a cost per thousand viewers (CPM) basis, according to people familiar with the situation.

Also Read: Latin Culture Is Key at TelevisaUnivision Upfront

TelevisaUnivision’s goal has been to convince marketers not advertising to the large Hispanic market to start running commercials in Spanish-language media.

“We are proud of the historic number of advertisers committing to the Hispanic audience in this year’s upfront marketplace, underscoring TelevisaUnivision’s distinguished leadership in serving this critical, diverse and dynamic consumer  base across all platforms,” Donna Speciale, president of U.S. advertising and marketing at TelevisaUnivision, said.

“From linear and streaming to social and digital, more brands than ever have leaned in to leverage our strengthened capabilities, embracing culture and language as drivers of their future relevance and success,” Speciale said. 

Several of the large English-language media companies — NBCUniversal, The Walt Disney Co. and Fox — have also said they have wrapped up their upfronts. In what was expected to be a difficult market, the media companies said they’ve seen higher volume, with gains coming in sports, streaming and digital inventory.

Sports was also a driver for TelevisaUnivision, sources said, with strong demand for its portfolio of soccer leagues and tournaments.

TelevisaUnivision’s ViX streaming service also chalked up double-digit increases in commitments compared to a year ago.

With most traditional ratings undercounting Hispanic consumers, TelevisaUnivision has been pushing new, big-data-based measuring systems. That new data was used as currency by advertisers representing about 40% of TelevisaUnivision’s volume, sources said.

The Walt Disney Co. said it has completed its upfront advertising sales, generating record commitments with sports and streaming, in particular, showing growth.

Overall dollar volume was up 5% from last year, with more than 40% of upfront commitments going towards addressable inventory, including streaming and digital.

Disney Advertising said it benefited from the expansion of ad-supported Disney Plus, as well as from women’s sports sponsorships, multicultural partnerships and investments from independent buying agencies.

Streaming and sports were both up by double digits, the company said.

Also Read: Disney’s Rita Ferro Is Banking on Sports, Streaming, Tech (Upfronts)

“Disney’s unrivaled storytelling paired with our unparalleled ad technology and data capabilities delivers the outcomes our partners continue to push us on, and we continue to raise the bar,” Disney president, global advertising Rita Ferro said. “Our growth in the number of marketers we work with and the increased investments in advertising innovation demonstrates Disney’s differentiator. As we double down on our commitment to world-class storytelling, automation, and new ad products, demonstrating growth for partners underpins our focus for the future.”

Also Read: Disney Upfront Welcomes Back Bob Iger — and Jimmy Kimmel

Streaming ad volume was up 10% across Hulu and Disney Plus, the company said. Advertisers took advantage of the Disney Streaming Entertainment package, which offers inventory across the company’s streaming apps.

Data and targeted advertising were in demand from advertisers looking to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their campaigns.

Use of Disney’s first-party data was up 181% from a year ago, with nearly 60% of all data-enabled deals using Disney’s data.

Performance marketing deals were up 19%.

Categories that performed well for the 2024-25 upfront include international auto, beverages, food, personal care; financial services; healthcare and travel — specifically hotels and vacation rentals; and restaurants — led by quick-service restaurants. 

Earlier, NBCUniversal and Fox also reported strong upfront results in what was expected to be a difficult market.

Fox said it has completed its upfront, managing increases in dollar volume for its linear and digital properties in what was expected to be a difficult market for legacy networks.

“Our focused portfolio of market-leading properties in sports, news, entertainment and streaming delivered year-over-year growth in both linear and digital advertising commitments as well as growth in overall portfolio pricing in this year’s upfront,” Fox president, advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships Jeff Collins said in a statement.

“Notably, we saw rapidly accelerating double-digit volume growth on Tubi, which is testament to its incredible momentum in the streaming marketplace,” Collins added. 

Demand was strong enough that Fox elected to sell more inventory in the upfront than in past years, rather than take a chance on pricing in the scatter market, which has been weak the past few years, sources familiar with the situation said.

This was the first upfront for Collins, who succeeded Marianne Gambelli as head of Fox ad sales earlier this year.

Fortunately for Collins, Fox’s portfolio does not include cable entertainment networks. With cord-cutting reducing viewership and programmers moving original programming from their cable networks to their streaming platforms, demand was down.

What ad buyers wanted was live programming — sports and news — and Fox has tons of that.

Buyers said demand was up for NFL games, where Fox generates the highest ratings on Sunday afternoons/ Fox also has college football, with its Saturday-afternoon games being joined by a package of Friday-night games this season.

In February Fox will air the Super Bowl, the biggest advertising event of the year. Buyers said Fox was hoping to be substantially sold out by the beginning of September, with prices ranging as high as $7.2 million for a 30-second spot.

Broadcast primetime volume on Fox was surprisingly strong, especially compared to cable’s problems.

Also Read: Fox Shares Fall Premiere Dates, Including Rookie Shows ‘Rescue: HI-Surf’ and ‘Universal Basic Guys’

With the recent wild political news, viewing of Fox News Channel was way up in July, which fueled ad demand. Fox has sold election packages for advertisers that are not shy about having their commercials appear in political coverage. Other advertisers have opted to either wait to start their flights after the election is over or to appear in the more lifestyle-oriented programming running on Fox News.

Fox’s Tubi streaming platform managed to score increased ad commitments despite heightened competition in streaming caused by the entrance of Amazon Prime Video into the market, individuals familiar with the situation said..

While a flood of inventory from Prime Video threatened to depress price in the market, Tubi’s volume continued to increase commensurate with its continuing double-digit viewership growth.

Also on the digital side, Fox’s new offering that lets advertisers buy audiences across Fox properties saw significant growth, according to Collins. OneFox “delivered a 3 times increase in volume over last year,” he said.

Earlier this month, NBCUniversal said it had finished its upfront, registering an increase in volume across broadcast, cable and streaming.

NBCU said that sports was a strong seller, along with Peacock and its digital platforms. 

Buyers said that advertisers were looking for flexibility from the networks. 

“It’s not like the old days when we had to rush to get our money down on programming,” one media agency executive said.  “With so many options out there, there are new ways to reach customers.” 

While the supply of entertainment inventory was high, ad dollars were chasing sports. 

The lack of urgency meant the framework for deals was reached weeks ago, but both sides had time to iron out details — which should work out better for the advertisers.

Despite an increase in programmatic buying, the upfront will remain an important part of the TV buying process.

“The legacy media networks still want to count their dollars and get that down in May and June, so I don’t think it will go away completely,” the agency executives said. “But people are more active throughout the year because they want more flexibility and there are more options.”

NBCUniversal said it has largely completed its upfront ad sales, registering a modest increase in volume across broadcast, cable and streaming.

Particularly strong sellers were sports, Peacock and digital platforms. 

“This past year, we focused every investment and innovation on driving media effectiveness for our clients. Our engaging content provides the ultimate canvas for our advertisers to tell their brand stories to their consumers,” Mark Marshall, chairman, global advertising and partnerships at NBCU, said. ”And in this year’s Upfront, NBCUniversal saw growth in advertising commitments across its portfolio in key business areas including strategic audiences, live programming, and streaming—demonstrating the value of our storytelling and the strength of our powerful tech stack to the marketplace.” 

With cord-cutting and the shift to streaming, legacy media companies are adjusted this ad offerings to compete with digital companies like Google and Amazon, as well as streamers like Netflix and Roku.

NBC has gotten into streaming with Peacock and has invested in data and technology in order to offer ads that are more targeted with results that are easier to quantify.

Still, lower ratings for broadcast and cable have put pressure on prices as advertisers have more choices, particularly when it comes to entertainment programming, buyers said. 

Sports was particularly strong, with NFL Sunday Night Football remaining the highest-rated primetime show on TV. 

Sources familiar with the situation said sports on NBC generated its highest level of upfront commitments ever. 

NBCU also saw demand for Bravo, its late-night shows and NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt, with an election coming up.

NBC also had strong sales for the 50th anniversary season of Saturday Night Live.

Direct-to-consumer advertisers, more used to programmatic buying, increased their upfront commitments at NBCU by 50%. These advertisers, many of them new to the upfront, both in primetime, news and sports.

As streaming becomes the dominant way people consume TV, a shift toward programmatic buying is accelerating. The increasing availability of biddable inventory, combined with the flexibility that programmatic offers, is prompting some to question the necessity of a TV upfront that demands hefty ad dollar commitments.

It’s reasonable to speculate that a world where a few networks sell upward of 75% of their linear ad inventory for the upcoming year in just a few short weeks may not make long-term sense. However, advertisers will always negotiate commitments to exercise their spending leverage and ensure they aren’t shut out of inventory crucial to the success of their brands. 

That said, the methods used to achieve these goals via commitments are likely to evolve significantly from the TV markets of the recent past. If anything, the upfronts are poised to be revitalized thanks to the growth of programmatic technology.

In the “early days” of this fast-growing medium (i.e., just a few years ago), most marketers bought CTV in the same way as traditional TV — through direct deals. By last year, though, we saw the “early majority” of brands shift from direct I/O toward programmatic and this year we predict that the “late majority” will consolidate their CTV upfronts within a demand-side platform (DSP).

In fact, Advertiser Perceptions found that 69% of advertisers plan to utilize programmatic guaranteed and 56% plan to use private marketplace (PMP) buys in the next 12 months, compared to only 53% planning to use direct I/O. This shows us that TV buying behaviors are changing and mixed, hybrid buying methods are more popular than ever.

Buying TV directly or programmatically is only the first of many decisions buyers must make as they prepare their upfront strategy. Here are my predictions and how advertisers can capitalize on the growing shift toward programmatic.

1. Consolidate TV buys in a softer market: One main reason buyers want to participate in the upfront is to guarantee their share of coveted inventory. The challenge arises when this leads to a proliferation of direct deals that may target the same household too many times. 

One of the biggest advantages of programmatic campaigns with a DSP, specifically via PMPs, is that you can consolidate CTV buys into a unified buying method. This allows you to understand and manage reach and frequency holistically and reduce overlap between CTV and linear, as well as overlap between publishers to maximize reach. This saves advertisers money while making for a better customer experience.

2. Uplevel audience strategies in a converging landscape: As an industry, we like to bucket TV into “linear” and “CTV,” but it’s all just TV to the consumer. The challenge for advertisers is connecting the dots between both channel types to understand things like holistic reach and frequency and who is being exposed to your ads regardless of what viewers are watching or how they are accessing content on their TVs. 

With programmatic, these insights can be leveraged for advanced TV targeting that goes beyond basic demographic audiences. This starts with a foundation of diverse and holistic data, such as combining high-quality ACR data with set-top box data. This allows for a unified approach to TV. It also enables advertisers to reach their audiences more effectively by better understanding viewing behaviors and powering use cases, such as suppressing linear audiences on CTV to drive incremental reach. 

3. Aim for identity-based supply at scale: All of these strategies are only effective if you can actually reach the right audiences. This is why having a foundation of identity within an ad platform — which powers more precise reach — is critical.

While cookie deprecation may seem irrelevant to TV buyers, it sets the stage for other signal deprecations, such as IP addresses. A lack of an “identity spine” also makes connecting measurement between digital channels and inventory difficult. That’s why TV buyers will increasingly value future-proof TV activation backed by robust identity.

Despite initial reservations, the industry is witnessing a significant shift toward programmatic buying, with a hybrid model proving to be particularly effective. As this trend continues, advertisers who embrace these changes will likely find themselves better positioned to reach their desired audiences more effectively and precisely. 

Upfront presentations were once about the shows that would be on the fall primetime schedule.

Now, with media companies racing to become tech companies before tech companies can become media companies, there was a lot of talk about whose data was bigger and who knew how best to bring a marketer to optimization.

On the Radio City Music Hall stage last Monday, NBCUniversal ad sales chairman Mark Marshall regaled attendees with a tale of how the company’s new one platform total audience cross-platform campaign planning tool sold 38% more Domino’s pizza than traditional planning. 

Also Read: Continuing Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

“Results like this don't happen just on their own. It happens when you invest in premium content and data when you leverage linear and streaming all in a 100% brand-safe environment and when you have the unmatched daily ad-supported reach like ours,” Marshall said. 

“And we're not stopping there,“ he said. “We’re utilizing our new-gen AI audience capabilities to make these results even stronger by tapping into audience segments around human connections that can be tailored to your brand's KPIs. This is the future of advertising right here right now at NBCUniversal.” 

The next day, Amazon said, “hold my beer.” 

“This week you're going to hear lots of presentations,” Tanner Elton, VP, U.S. ad sales for Amazon, said. “And everyone's going to talk about their reach, their audience insights, measurement capabilities and, of course, their content.” 

“Here’s the critical difference. We're not just an entertainment company trying to monetize our shows with the latest ad tech or third-party audience signals. This is Amazon,” Elton said. “We’re the place those customers come to shop and do so much more, which means we can do things nobody else can do.”

Amazon staked a claim to being the largest ad-supported streaming service, with 200 million subscribers, including 115 million in the U.S.

Alan Moss, VP global ad sales for Amazon, said what his company was delivering is “full-funnel advertising at scale for everyone.”

“With our clean-room and other leading ad tech we can help all advertisers connect awareness and brand objectives directly to sales outcomes and category growth,” Moss said.

Disney was not to be outdone. “We’re leading the transformation in our global advertising business,” said global ad sales president Rita Ferro. “One that is built for the future and anchored in streaming.“

Disney emphasized connecting with customers, another of the week’s themes. Disney claimed it connects with half of the world, every day.

“We have built a reach machine of billions of commercial impressions and scale, all consistently delivering the business outcomes across all the metrics that matter to you,” Ferro said.

Ferro also talked about Disney’s tech stack. “The same platform that powers our entertainment and sports also powers your brands,” she said. “Our technology is making it easier and easier to put your ad in front of the right consumer at the right time, across the Disney universe regardless of screen.”

At Warner Bros. Discovery, the talk was about the WBD Effect. “We know how the WBD Effect drives results,” WBD chief U.S. ad sales officer Jon Steinlauf said. “Our brand partners are already using it to achieve measurable increases in consumer spending, brand awareness and brand perception.”

Steinlauf talked about WBD’s data driven video products.

“[Data-driven video] is powered by Olli, a cutting-edge ad-tech platform that creates streamlined planning activation and measurement,” he said. “We deliver the highest degree of accuracy in a privacy-compliant manner. We monitor delivery and adjust allocations throughout the flight to make sure we're maximizing the efficiency and efficacy of your investment.”

Steinlauf noted that while some ad-supported streaming services now show up to 10 minutes an hour of commercials, Max has just 3.3 minutes of commercials per hour. That gives advertisers “more impact and engagement.”

Meanwhile, Netflix announced it would be building an in-house ad-tech platform. Netflix has been working with Microsoft since launching its ad tier. It will continue to sell ads through Microsoft’s platform, but will also be working with The Trade Desk, Google’s Display & Video 360 and Magnite programmatic platforms.

“Bringing our ad tech in-house will allow us to power the ads plan with the same level of excellence that’s made Netflix the leader in streaming technology today,” said Amy Reinhard, Netflix’s president of advertising.

"We’re being incredibly strategic about how we present ads because we want our members to have a phenomenal experience. We conduct deep consumer research to make sure we stay ahead of the competition, bringing opportunities that are better for members and better for brands,” Reinhard said.

Were media buyers more impressed by the actors on stage and the trailers on the screens, or claims about data, technology and efficiency?

“Talent and star power is still the highlight of the upfronts because content is still important,” one media buyer said. “They need to underpin it with the data, the innovation and the technology.”

The upfront has changed with the media environment, the buyer added. “All of these media sellers understand that the future is not just linear or not just streaming. It is audience first and being able to find that strategic audience across the entire pool of their available supply — be it linear, addressable or streaming,” the buyer said.

After a year in which strikes kept actors from appearing at upfront events, 2024 looked like a battle of the network stars, as if big names equaled great content. 

Tech companies pitched programming while programmers pitched advanced advertising.

While impressed by the spectacle, some buyers expressed the idea that smaller was actually more effective when it came to presentations.

Here are some highlights from a week of stage shows, sales talk and cocktails.

Hike, Hike Hike: NFL football is the hottest thing on TV, football and every company with NFL games made sure advertisers knew they had a lineup of stars on the field and in the booth, with Fox’s Tom Brady and ESPN’s Jason Kelce joining the fray. Even Netflix donned a helmet, announcing a Christmas NFL doubleheader.

More Stars Than Are in the Heavens: On Tuesday, Amazon and The Walt Disney Co. played Can You Top This with boldfaced names. Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell headlined for Prime Video, which needed to show programming chops. Disney showed it still has magic, rolling out Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Steve Martin, Michelle Williams and Angela Bassett. Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, Jon Hamm, Lauren Graham and Mindy Kaling also twinkled during the week.

Also Read: Continuing Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

Chef of the Future: In addition to having creative bona fides, each network claimed mastery of data and tech. Mark Marshall, chairman of NBCUniversal advertising sales and partnerships, declared, “This is the future of advertising, right here, right now at NBCUniversal.” Tanner Elton, VP, U.S. ad sales at Amazon, said, “We believe this is the future of advertising.” Not to be outdone, Disney president of global advertising Rita Ferro claimed, “Our advertising business is built for the future and anchored in streaming.”

One More Thing: Media companies are throwing all their assets at sponsors, calling the activity One NBCU, One WBD, and so on. Advertisers liked the idea that with streaming they could reach people watching new films and other programming that was ad-free until recently. “We’ve removed the barrier between our networks, studios and streaming platforms as well as our licensing and franchise team,” Warner Bros. Discovery chief advertising sales officer Jon Steinlauf said.  Movies like Wicked, showcased by NBCU, and series like HBO’s House of the Dragon are no longer off-limits. But the notion that there is a “WBD effect” drew titters at Netflix. 

Bigger Not Better: Paramount Global’s CBS and Nexstar Media Group’s The CW did not hold their traditional presentations from the days of yore. And Netflix’s initial gathering was private and small. Ad attendees weren’t complaining. Some said they preferred the more intimate alternatives to Carnegie Hall-level extravaganzas. “We don’t like being talked to,” said one media buyer. “The smaller event means we can talk.”

Not Enough Bandwidth: Amazon’s presentation was at Pier 36, which was convenient for just about no one. Getting to an upfront presentation typically involves a cab ride to a grand hall in midtown, not hopping the subway to lower Manhattan, then strolling through the Lower East Side. Amazon started late and ended late, making it difficult to get to TelevisaUnivision’s Casa Cultura way on the West Side of town. The Univision folks were not pleased. Maybe Dale Earnhardt Jr., onstage at Amazon to discuss a docuseries about his father, could’ve offered a few tips on zipping through midtown traffic. Later, at the Disney upfront, Jimmy Kimmel joked: “I heard Amazon left you guys out on the porch. You’re lucky you didn’t get stolen.”

Up To The Plate: With so much talk about the NFL, women’s basketball and the Olympics, it’s worth noting that until recently sports was not bought during the upfront. Now, with more advertisers investing more dollars in sports, they’re bundling their sports purchases with their upfront deals to boost how much they’re spending and get a better price — a tactic that’s working, one buyer said.

The Mighty A-Iger: Fresh off his proxy-war victory and effusively introduced by Emma Stone, Bob Iger, Disney CEO, made his first appearance onstage at the Disney event since 1994, when he was a fresh-faced head of programming for ABC. “To say a lot has changed since 1994 would be an incredible understatement … television used to be something you watch on a television,” Iger said. “Today we're going to share with you the incredible projects that we're working on, and later Jimmy Kimmel will be out to tear them all apart. He’ll probably be tearing me apart, too.”

Taking on the Boss: Indeed, Kimmel targeted Iger. “Bob tried to sell us last year, he put us up for sale, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, no one wanted to buy us,” Kimmel cracked. “When no one was interested, Bob explained that he didn’t mean he literally wanted to sell us, he was just testing the waters for Wall Street. You know, Bob, when people test the waters, they usually dip in a toe, they don’t drown their children.” 

Facing Danger: Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall got a standing ovation after walking onstage at the Fox event. In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Hall was catastrophically wounded outside Kyiv in an attack that killed two colleagues. The Fox presentation checked in with correspondent Trey Yingst in Israel. He said to Hall, “we’re proud to call you both a colleague and a friend.”

Amazon Delivers: Despite the late start, Amazon offered an energy that surpassed its rivals, thanks in large part to Alicia Keys kicking things off with a couple of songs. 

Too Much Country: Attendees at the NBCU event at Radio City Music Hall were less enthused about Little Big Town, playing some Christmas music, in May, to hype up the band’s Christmas at the Opry special on later — much later — this year. 

Big Claims: Amazon worldwide head, Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios Mike Hopkins said Prime Video has 200 million subscribers worldwide and 115 million in the U.S., making it the biggest ad-supported streaming service. Disney came back with a claim that half the world connects with Disney every day. “Half the world’s population connects with Disney every day. Did we know that? I didn’t,” retorted Jimmy Kimmel. “And you know why I didn’t? We made it up. I don’t think Jesus even connects with half the world’s population every day.”

Sign of the Times: Buyers who missed last year’s pickets got deja vu outside Fox, where demonstrators urged brands not to advertising on Fox. They were chanting “Fox News lies, democracy dies, don’t be the next Mr. Pillow guys.”

Don’t Want To Be Here: Jimmy Kimmel didn’t sound thrilled to be back at the Disney upfront. “Two years ago, I couldn’t be here in person because I had COVID and last year, I couldn’t be here because of the writers strike,” he joked. “And this year I couldn’t think of a third excuse. I tried diarrhea on the plane, but I guess they get that all the time now.”

More Funny Business: Kimmel wasn’t the only comedian. “I’m here because I love ad sales,” cracked longtime TNT Sports employee Shaquille O’Neal. “I’m the living proof of the WBD effect.” Conan O’Brien joked about O’Neal’s endorsements, noting that he’d signed even more deals while on stage the the WBD upfront. O’Brien said the endorsements were for “the Shaq and Decker circular saw, the Shaqbook laptop, the Shake Shack Shaq, Shaq Plaque Attack dental floss, Shaq Zodiac tarot cards, Shaq Kerouac On the Road Travel Books,The Cheesecake Shaqtory, Shaq-Tac-Toe, Shaq-a-mole and Shaq oat milk for the Shaq-tose intolerant.”  

LeVar Burton will host the new game show Trivial Pursuit on The CW, while Raven-Symoné will host Scrabble. 

The CW shared its 2024-2025 schedule, which goes seven nights a week and has rookie gamers Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble on Mondays. Burton has been in Roots and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Symoné has been in Raven's Home and That's So Raven. 

Tuesdays have WWE NXT. 

Wednesdays offers season two of drama Sullivan’s Crossing and new limited series Joan, with Sophie Turner as  a notorious jewel thief. 

Thursdays have the final season of Superman & Lois and The Librarians: The Next Chapter. The Next Chapter has Callum McGowan as a Librarian from the past who time traveled to the present, and is stuck. 

Fridays have season 13 of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Inside the NFL, with Ryan Clark hosting. 

Sports are on for Saturdays, including ACC and PAC-12 football and NASCAR Xfinity Series. 

Sundays are movie nights, including I Am documentaries. 

“The fall 2024 season is another leap forward in the bold transformation of The CW Network, as we continue building a media brand with broadcast at its core,” said Brad Schwartz, president of entertainment, The CW. “The CW is currently enjoying three consecutive quarters of growth and we are looking forward to a fall schedule that is stronger than ever, starting with a brand-new game night featuring Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble — two games families have enjoyed for decades and hosted by fan favorites LeVar Burton and Raven-Symoné. We have new seasons of returning hit scripted series Sullivan’s Crossing and Superman & Lois, whose final season is weekly can’t-miss event television. Our scripted lineup continues to grow with Joan, starring the brilliant Sophie Turner, and The Librarians: The Next Chapter.”

The midseason will have the drama Good Cop/Bad Cop, with Leighton Meester, and the David Thewlis drama Sherlock & Daughter. 

Dramas Walker and All American do not appear on the schedule. 

Schwartz added, “We’ll also have more live sports than ever before with the addition of WWE NXT, the NASCAR Xfinity Series and Pac-12 football alongside second seasons of LIV Golf, Inside the NFL, ACC football and ACC basketball. Anchored by 500 hours of sports in 2025, we continue to get bigger and broader while reaching and growing our audience across broadcast, streaming and local.”

Netflix shared some programming projects at an upfront presentation in New York. Those include the basketball-themed comedy series Running Point, a Mindy Kaling-produced show with Kate Hudson as the new head of a famed basketball franchise in Los Angeles; and the Kevin Williamson family drama The Waterfront. As the title suggests, that one is set in a small coastal town “with twists and turns inspired by true events,” Netflix said, as a family struggles to hold it together. 

Williamson’s credits include the Scream film franchise, Dawson’s Creek and The Vampire Diaries. 

Tim McGraw is involved in what Netflix calls “a contemporary cowboy saga,” while a docuseries will detail the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s. 

Sticking with the sports theme, Will Ferrell will star in the series Golf, where he plays a fictional golf legend. Executive producers include Ferrell, Ramy Youseff and Rian Johnson. 

Netflix is also doing three series with the International Olympic Committee: Simone Biles: Rising, a show about men’s basketball teams from around the world, and Sprint, about 100-meter sprinters. 

Films include Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore 2, the Keira Knightley film The Woman in Cabin 10 and another from Kathryn Bigelow. 

Happy Gilmore came out in 1996. 

Netflix also inked a deal with the NFL for a package including Christmas Day games in 2025 and 2026. 

Netflix, a newcomer to the advertising business, said it plans to launch an in-house advertising technology platform.

During this week’s upfront presentations, media and technology companies have boasted about their advanced advertising capabilities. After initially relying on Microsoft as its ad tech platform, Netflix says the platform it will build will give advertisers new ways to buy, new insights and new ways to measure the impact of campaigns.

 Also Read: Continuing Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

“Bringing our ad tech in-house will allow us to power the ads plan with the same level of excellence that’s made Netflix the leader in streaming technology today,” said Amy Reinhard, who was named president of advertising at Netflix in October.

Microsoft will continue as one of the platforms handling programmatic advertising for Netflix, but the streaming giant will also be making its ads available for programmatic buyers via The Trade Desk, Google’s Display & Video 360 and Magnite.

Netflix said it is also working with other companies to measure and verify the impact of campaigns, including Affinity Solutions, DoubleVerify, EDO, Integral Ad Science, iSpot.TV, Kantar, Lucid, NCSolutions, Nielsen and TVision.

"We’re being incredibly strategic about how we present ads because we want our members to have a phenomenal experience. We conduct deep consumer research to make sure we stay ahead of the competition, bringing opportunities that are better for members and better for brands,” said Reinhard.

Reinhard said Netflix’s ad-supported plan now has 40 million global monthly active users, up from 5 million a year ago.  Over 40% of all signups in the ads countries now come from the ads plan.

“Our audiences are highly engaged — and by engaged I mean that they are choosing to spend their time watching Netflix,” added Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer.

“That’s important because engagement is the key to success in streaming. When people watch our shows and movies, they get more value from Netflix, they stick around longer, and they’re more likely to recommend us to their friends,“ Bajaria told ad buyers. ”And this matters to all of you because you want to be where the audiences are, too.“

Citing data from Nielsen, Netflix said that over 70% of Netflix’s ad-supported members watch for more than 10 hours a month, which is 15 percentage points higher than the nearest competitor. 

Netflix members also pay even more attention three hours into watching than they do when they first start. And because they do, they’re around twice as likely to respond to an ad compared to other streaming services and linear TV, Netflix said.

Netflix also announced tons of new series. Comedies include Golf, starring Will Ferrell and executive produced by Ramy Youseff and Rian Johnson; and Running Point starring Kate Hudson and executive produced by Mindy Kaling.

Dramas include The Waterfront from Kevin Williamson and a modern cowboy saga starring Tim McGraw.

Bajaria also announced that 3 Body Problem will be back for another season.

After landing NFL games on Christmas Day, Netflix continued to push into sports with a documentary on the 1990s Dallas Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones, and three series working with the International Olympic Committee. One is about Simone Biles, a second is about men’s basketball teams from around the world and the last follows 100-meter sprinters.

Netflix is also making Happy Gilmore 2 with Adam Sandler.

“There’s a lot to be excited about over the next year. But the story of ads on Netflix this year is pretty simple: It’s about growth and momentum,” said Peter Naylor, VP of advertising sales at Netflix.

The Warner Bros. Discovery upfront presentation took place Wednesday, May 15 at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. Bruce Campbell, Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief revenue and strategy officer, got it going, talking about the merger a couple years ago, and reimagining “a media company for a rapidly evolving future.”

He added, “No one said it would be easy, and it wasn’t, but we’ve done it.”

 Also Read: Continuing Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

Mindy Kaling spoke about The Sex Lives of College Girls. “I am so proud of this show,” she said, “especially because its voice and subject material could only be on Max.”
Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO, HBO and Max content, talked up Max and its mix of news and sports and series and movies, including Dune: Part 2 coming next week. 

“Quality is the heart of everything we create,” he said. 

Hannah Einbinder and Paul W. Downs of Hacks were out next. “Audiences may come for the laughs, but the honest moments on Hacks keep them engaged,” said Downs, while Einbinder announced an original comedy special June 13. 

Bloys returned to promote season two of House of the Dragon, starting on HBO June 16, and share that another Game of Thrones spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, has begun filming, with a 2025 release. 

Football show Hard Knocks will focus on the New York Giants as the team marks its century anniversary. 

A trailer for season three of The White Lotus was shared, a theme being, “Anyone who moves to Thailand is either looking for something or hiding from something.”

Season two of The Last of Us turns up in the first half of 2025, and medical drama The Pitt, from John Wells, is in the works. 

Sarah Jessica Parker spoke about And Just Like That. She credited “great writing and wonderful actors and the city as the fifth character” for the show’s success. 

Jon Steinlauf, chief US ad sales officer, Warner Bros. Discovery, said, “Our industry is in a constant state of change but the value of great content and the need to innovate never changes.” He spoke of “The WBD Effect”, the company’s influence on pop culture, and One WBD, its united philosophy as it moves forward. 

Shereen Miller-Russell, executive VP of client partnerships and inclusion solutions, and Dana Nussbaum, executive VP, worldwide marketing, Warner Bros, Pictures, talked about movies, including the success of Barbie and upcoming Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, out May 24. 

Kathleen Finch, chairman and CEO, U.S. Networks, Warner Bros. Discovery, spoke about the company’s ability to “draw in desirable and unique viewers” on a range of platforms. 

“Viewers come to WBD for our addictive content,” she added. 

She spoke about true crime, including the Jessica Biel program Fatal Destination, about the dark side of beloved vacation spots. She also spoke about wrestling, The Big Bang Theory and new Tarek El Moussa and Christina Hall real estate show The Flip/Off, featuring the divorced couple trying to work together. “You laugh, but you’re gonna watch it,” Finch said. 

John Cena was announced as host of Shark Week, which begins on Discovery July 7. 

Bobby Flay spoke about holiday programming, such as Holiday Baking Championship and Beat Bobby Flay: Holiday Throwdown. “We celebrate the food traditions of the holidays like no one else,” he said. 

Another competition series, Harry Potter Wizards of Baking, was announced. Pastry chefs will create desserts based on the Potter film franchise. 

Several CNN anchors, including Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper, were out next. “No matter where I go in the world, the power of the three red letters is undeniable,” said Cooper. 

Mark Thompson, chairman and CEO, CNN Worldwide, shared about why he took the job. “The world needs the truth now more than ever,” he said. “It needs honest reporting and it needs journalists it knows and trusts,” and no one offers that better, he believes, than CNN. 

Saying news is more than politics, he promised new branded verticals for business and tech, health and wellness, sports and entertainment. 

Back to politics, Thompson said he’d invited President Biden and former president Trump to a debate June 27, and said both accepted that very morning. 

Then it was TNT Sports figures Taylor Rooks, Charles Barkley, Micah Parsons,  

Dale Earnhardt and Wayne Gretzky. Barkley said of TNT’s Inside the NBA, “The people behind the scenes just come up with fun stuff all the time.”

Gretzky said of NHL on TNT, “we’re just trying to follow their lead.”

Luis Silberwasser, TNT Sports chairman and CEO, said TNT Sports is “obsessed with creating the most compelling sports content for our fans.” Coming up are NASCAR arriving on TNT next year with an in-season tournament, and the NHL Stanley Cup finals next year. 

Shaquille O’Neal and Conan O’Brien wrapped things up. O’Brien teased Shaq about all his endorsements, and suggested a few others, including Shaq & Decker and Shaq Oat Milk, for the Shaqtose intolerant. 

“We had to be here, you chose to be here,” quipped O’Brien. “That’s on you.”

Warner Bros. Discovery announced new advanced advertising products marketers can buy on its Max streaming service during its upfront presentation Wednesday.

The new capabilities include shoppable ads, advanced contextual targeting and interactive video formats.

The theme of Warner Bros. Discovery’s upfront was “Make It Happen Here,” emphasizing the company’s ability to meld its programming and marketing solutions for advertisers. 

The company also introduced “One WBD,” a system that lets advertisers take advantage of all of the company’s assets, from streaming and linear networks, to movies and licensing.  Putting it all together results in what the company calls The WBD Effect.

Also Read: WBD Upfront Show Offers Peeks at ‘House of the Dragon’, ‘White Lotus’, Biden-Trump Debate

Before the upfront presentation, Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. advertising sales officer at Warner Bros. Discovery, told B+C that advanced advertising was one of three big growth drivers for the company, along with sports and streaming.

“We’ve really stepped up our effort in advanced advertising,” Steinlauf said.

Warner Bros. Discovery last month launched Olli, a first-party data platform advertisers can use for converged target advertising campaigns. It also launched a product called data-driven video across its linear and streaming networks.

“Advanced advertising starts to make a difference if you have the right data,” Steinlauf said. “Over the last nine months, we have upgraded our data. We now have first-party data on 100 million households and 700 million devices.”

Warner Bros. Discovery can take an advertiser’s strategic target, put it into a clean room, match it with WBD’s data and come out with unique households after de-duplication.

 Also Read: Continuing Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

“We can follow those households wherever they’re watching us, whatever device, whatever platform,” Steinlauf said. 

WBD can also maximize reach for the target audience while smoothing the frequency of the campaign, he said.

Warner Bros. Discovery said shoppable content ads enable viewers to find out more about featured products and how to purchase them.

Advanced Contextual Targeting matches an advertiser’s message with the emotional tone of a specific moment in content, finding the ideal moment when an ad will be most relevant within an episode of a show.  Brand suitability is also ensured.

Warner Bros. Discovery is offering several flavors of interactive video ads, including Click-to-Contact, enabling viewers to engage with a brand and ask for more information about special offers or sweepstakes via their remote control.

Trivia and Polls is an interactive format featuring questions relevant to the brand. In the future, show IP will be integrated into these formats to intensify the connection between brand and content.

The Viewer’s Choice format enables consumers to select the ad that best matches their interests. The ads are designed to boost engagement and create a tailored ad experience for Max subscribers.

Warner Bros. Discovery previously announced that Brand Block, Sequential Ads and RE/Form ads were available to engage subscribers of Max’s ad-light tier.

Steinlauf said that WBD was also looking to support the non-sports parts of its linear portfolio, many of which historically have been popular with advertisers.

WBD’s streaming ad business is growing faster, but its linear networks generate more revenue. According to the company’s first-quarter earnings report, ad revenues for the traditional networks was down 11% to $1.99 billion, while DTC advertising increased 70% to $175 million.

Steinlauf headed sales for HGTV and Food Network at Scripps Networks Interactive before it was acquired by Discovery, and has overseen all ad sales since Discovery acquired WarnerMedia to become WBD.

HGTV and Food Network “have always been Madison Avenue darlings,” he said.

“I can tell you at the end of every single upfront negotiation for three companies over 20  years, I get asked, ‘Do I really have to pay that much for HGTV and Food?‘ and the answer is, ‘The demand is there,’ ” he said. 

The Walt Disney Co.’s upfront presentation went on with a connections theme, and Bob Iger himself appeared onstage moments after it began. Emma Stone introduced Iger, Disney CEO, who said it was his first upfront show appearance since 1994. 

Iger said he turned up “to express gratitude to the talented creative people” at Disney, and “to share my tremendous optimism” for the company. 

“To say a lot has changed since 1994 would be an understatement,” he said, and noted that he was not talking about hair color or clothing. 

 Also Read: Continuing Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

What hasn’t changed, he added, is that success in the industry is predicated on one thing: “Telling great stories.”

Next up was Rita Ferro, Disney president of global advertising, who first appeared as an animated character next to Peter Griffin on Family Guy then strolled onstage. She mentioned that “half of the world’s population connects with Disney every day” and outlined the company’s three priorities: relationships with talent, understanding the audience and “relentless focus on our guests.”

Then Ryan Reynolds came out, talking up Deadpool & Wolverine, out July 26, and his Nat Geo show Underdogs, about the “troublemakers of the animal kingdom.”

When his Wrexham FC co-owner Rob McElhenney came out, the two shared that Welcome to Wrexham will advance to season four. “It is a true Cinderella story,” said Reynolds. 

He pointed out that McElhenney’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia will do season 17. “We love doing it and I get to work with an incredible cast,” he said, including Kaitlin Olson, who strolled out to speak about new ABC drama High Potential. “It’s such a special story” about a single mother with a knack for solving crimes, she said. 

Then it was Jim Gaffigan, sharing his own Disney thoughts, including his favorite ride — the tram back to the hotel. 

“You may be wondering why I am here — am I just eye candy?” he said, then shared about a new Hulu comedy special franchise, which begins November 22 with … Jim Gaffigan. 

It’s called Laughing Now. 

Then it was Jalen Hurts and Quinta Brunson, talking Abbott Elementary and the Philadelphia Eagles, then Jason Kelce, new member of ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown team. “I know what it takes to be great — it takes a great team,” he said. 

Scott Van Pelt, Ryan Clark and Marcus Spears joined him, and said the full Monday Night Football schedule would be released May 15. The opener? Niners-Jets. 

Ryan Seacrest was next, sharing how “the greatest of all time,” Serena Williams, would host the ESPYs. 

He also spoke about a Bruce Springsteen docuseries called Road Diary on Hulu. On video, Springsteen shared a memory of him and Little Steven getting booted out of Disneyland 40 years ago for a dress code violation. 

“The good news is, we’re back!” he said. 

The series will be about how the E Street band puts together a tour, and “everything that makes our concerts a personal experience,” said Springsteen. 

Then David Muir, World News Tonight anchor, came out, saluting Robin Roberts’ 20 years on Good Morning America. She came out and noted the job he’s done on the evening newscast. 

“David, It’s because of your connection with the audience,” she said. 

Stephen A. Smith was next, talking about the NBA and the “incredible team at ESPN”, with Chris Paul joining him. Paul will be a guest analyst for the NBA finals. 

Nathan Fillion and Chewbacca then came out, speaking (mostly Fillion) about Star Wars show The Acolyte and The Rookie. Chewie missed a cue, which Fillion chalked up as “a Wookie mistake.”

The Acolyte cast, including Carrie-Ann Moss, came onstage. The show starts June 4 on Disney Plus. 

Ellen Pompeo shared about her “compelling family drama” Natalia, about an adoption that does not go as planned. 

Selena Gomez spoke about the Wizards of Waverly Place reboot, called Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, on Disney Plus and Disney Channel this year. 

Her Only Murders in the Building castmate Steve Martin came out, wondering, “are we just tossed aside?” as Gomez starts the new show. Next out was Martin Short, also of Only Murders, who said, “how dare you do a show without us!”

An Only Murders trailer followed, before Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden came out to discuss Hulu drama Paradise. Marsden plays the former president and Brown the head of security. “It’s got mystery, it’s got heart and drama,” said Marsden. 

A trailer of season three of The Bear showed, featuring some “non-negotiable” rules from Carmy about the new restaurant. 

Then it was college football, as Vince Young and Adrian Peterson discussed college rivalries. College GameDay will happen overseas for the first time, in Dublin. 

The presentation moved on to Marvel, where Katherine Hahn, Joe Locke and Patti Lupone

discussed the WandaVision spinoff Agatha All Along, due out around Halloween. 

Dominique Thorne talked up Ironheart, and Charley Fox and Vincent Donofrio discussed Daredevil: Born Again. 

“It is unique and dark and intense,” said Donofrio. 

Then it was women’s basketball, with South Carolina coach Dawn Staley coming out to share how to construct an undefeated season, before Angela Bassett strolled out. 

“Women both in front of and behind the camera are extraordinary forces,”  said the star of 9-1-1 and narrator of Nat Geo’s wildlife program Queens. 

Kim Kardashian announced three Ryan Murphy series, Doctor Odyssey, Grotesquerie and American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, and Michelle Williams detailed Dying For Sex. 

Kerry Washington said she is “always on the hunt for projects that break convention and have a specific point of view,” and shared that Unprisoned and Reasonable Doubt will both be back for season two. 

Finally Jimmy Kimmel came out to skewer the industry. “I heard Amazon left you guys on the porch,” he said, a nod to the streamer’s late-starting presentation earlier that day. 

He said he missed the event two years ago because of COVID-19, then last year because of the writer’s strike. He lamented not coming up with a good excuse this year.

He then introduced “AI-ger,” a Disney CEO that will be around for a bit. “Bob isn't going anywhere ever again,” said Kimmel. “We uploaded him into the cloud.”

He introduced a new take on The Bachelor, and The Golden Bachelor, and The Golden Bachelorette, called The Golden Retriever, then signed off. 

“Unless something terrible happens, I’ll see you next year,” said Kimmel. 

Amazon’s first-ever upfront presentation, at Pier 36 in Lower Manhattan, got a late start due to its remote location. But the energy spiked when Alicia Keys took the stage. 

“Growing up in New York City, there’s something about connection that you find really important,” she said, adding that her common ground with Amazon is “how do we connect with people, how do we bring it deeper and farther?”

After singing “Empire State of Mind,” she yelled, “It’s gonna be a beautiful dayyyy!”

Paul Kotas, senior VP, Amazon Advertising, came out and spoke about Lord of the Rings, Reacher and live sports, including Thursday Night Football. 

 Also Read: Continuing Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

“At Amazon we’re never done innovating,” he said, then introduced Mike Hopkins, senior VP and head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. He called advertising on Prime “a major leap forward,” and “an entirely new chapter for us and the industry.”

He boasted about Fallout’s 80 million viewers, and The Idea of You approaching 50 million. 

Then it was Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios. “No other studio offers creators so many ways to engage with an audience,” she said, citing original programs, books, fashion, podcasts and retail. 

Next up in terms of originals is Tomb Raider, from Phoebe Waller Bridge, and Noir, from Nicolas Cage. 

Salke brought Jake Gyllenhaal, star of Road House, which Salke said has also had close to 80 million views. 

Gyllenhaal said the project was “such big shoes to fill.”

He added, “It was exhilarating to feel all the intensity and the buzz and the vibe.”

Alan Ritchson came out to discuss Reacher. “All we have to do is honor the books,” he said. “We just have to authentically honor the books and, so far so good.”

Aldis Hodge was out next to discuss Alex Cross. The series’ success “proves that this character is absolutely timeless,” he said. 

Hodge said the show aimed to honor the character’s legacy, while also creating something that reflects “the here and the now.”

Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell then came out to discuss the offbeat rom-com You’re Cordially Invited. Ferrell, the self-proclaimed “rom-com king,” said he taught Witherspoon a few things about acting in such films. 

Witherspoon countered, “You’re so funny when you run around naked. Because your body’s so weird.”

Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham talked up their untitled series, which Spencer called an “action drama comedy.” It centers on a female assassin. 

Waddingham said female aging is not typically embraced in Hollywood, but “this is a show about striving toward your prime and realizing you are at the height of your power.” 

The actors said the project features the five F’s: fighting, freedom, fornicating and female friendship.

Next was The Summer I Turned Pretty. Creator Jenny Han said season three is coming in summer 2025, with 11 episodes. 

Star Lola Tung said: “My character Belly has grown up so much in season two. I can’t wait for everyone to see her journey [in season three].”

Han said, “We’ve all been working really hard to make this an epic season of Summer.”

The discussion shifted to unscripted, and Patton Oswalt spoke about his game show The 1% Club. Oswalt quipped that he ended up on the show after losing the Reacher part to Ritchson and the Road House lead to Gyllenhaal. 

The 1% Club is “not about what you know or how many facts are up in your skull,” he said. “It’s how your brain actually works.”

Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr. Beast, spoke on video about Beast Games, which will have the most contestants of any game show ever, he said. “It’s  going to be insane.”

Back to scripted, and a season five order for The Boys and a peek at the trailer for season two of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. 

Keke Palmer talked up her movie The Pickup, with Eddie Murphy, before Jay Marine, VP global head of sports, stepped out. “Nothing drives bigger appointment viewing than sports,” he said. 

The Thursday Night Football opener will be Dolphins-Bills September 12. Prime also has the National Women’s Soccer League and the WNBA, including Caitlin Clark’s pro debut this week. “She is amazing,” Marine said. 

The TNF gang, Charissa Thompson, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tony Gonzalez, was out next. “We can’t wait for the next chapter in what's now become a great rivalry,” said Thompson of the season opener. 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. talked about NASCAR coming to Prime, and Prime’s documentary project about his father. Roger Federer spoke about Federer: Twelve Final Days. 

“It’s been an amazing journey and I’m happy to share it,” he said. 

Tanner Elton, VP, U.S. ad sales, and Sarah Iooss, head of U.S. agency & Twitch, Amazon Ads, were out next. “Our reach extends beyond Prime Video,” said Iooss. 

Alan Moss, VP of global ad sales, hoped attendees would take one thing away from the upfront presentation: Full-funnel advertising at scale for everyone. 

But then Reese Witherspoon tossed in a juicier takeaway: A Legally Blonde prequel series on Prime, showing Elle in high school. 

ABC shared its 2024-2025 fall schedule hours before the Disney upfront presentation Tuesday, May 14. There’s The Golden Bachelorette, a new Ryan Murphy show and a drama based on a hit podcast, along with returning series.   

Mondays have Monday Night Football “on select Mondays this fall,” ABC said, and other programs will be announced. Tuesdays have Dancing with the Stars and new drama High Potential. Wednesdays offer The Golden Bachelorette, Abbott Elementary and new drama Scamanda. 

Thursdays have 9-1-1, new drama Doctor Odyssey and Grey’s Anatomy. Fridays have Shark Tank and 20/20. Saturdays air college football and Sundays have America’s Funniest Home Videos, in season 35, and The Wonderful World of Disney. 

“We have a lot to celebrate as we gear up to deliver a fall season that’s packed with compelling new series, beloved fan favorites and must-see live events,” said Craig Erwich, president, Disney Television Group. “We’re focused on driving our viewership with an expanding slate anchored by best-in-class talent and supported by the enviable and combined reach of ABC and Hulu.”

The Golden Bachelorette features a “radiant woman in her golden years” setting out to find love, ABC said. The Golden Bachelor debuted last fall, with 71-year-old Gerry Turner looking for love. 

The Ryan Murphy series is Doctor Odyssey, a procedural with Don Johnson and Joshua Jackson in the cast. Jackson’s Max is the doctor on a luxury cruise ship, where the staff works hard and plays harder, and the medical crises are at times shocking. 

High Potential is based on a French series, a crime procedural with Kaitlin Olson as a single mom with an unconventional knack for solving crimes who partners with a by-the-book detective.

Scamanda is based on the eponymous podcast, about Amanda Riley, a mother, blogger and Christian whose cancer tale captivates thousands. But Amanda has a secret, and after an anonymous tip to an investigative reporter, her own words may prove to be her downfall.

The Rookie, Will Trent, The Conners, American Idol, The Bachelor, Celebrity Jeopardy!, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and What Would You Do? are on for the midseason, along with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, from executive producer Reese Witherspoon and hosted by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin. 

It will be the seventh and final season of The Conners. 

TelevisaUnivision told advertisers at its upfront presentation Tuesday about more ways they can connect with Latin culture, including through music and live events.

Among the headlines were Shakira announcing that her song Punteria will be the official song of TelevisaUnivison’s coverage of the 2024 Copa America soccer tournament. 

Speaking of soccer, the company announced that Hyundai has become the official automotive partner of Liga MX in the U.S.

Univision also announced the creation of “Sistema Uforia,” offering advertisers a way to take advantage of all of Univison’s Latin music assets and new festivals tied to some of its award shows.

Also Read: More Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

The Spanish-language media giant designed its event as a Casa Cultura — or house of culture — to give media buyers and marketers a taste of what the growing Hispanic community is creating and enjoying.

“I want people to feel the Latin culture,” Donna Speciale, president of U.S. advertising sales and marketing at TelevisaUnivison, told B+C before the upfront. “This is our way of bringing it to life.

“Hispanics are now mainstream. Everybody — society, not just marketers — is now seeing it with the explosion of Latin music, for one,” she continued. “Think about what’s happening in the political landscape. The Latino vote is critical.”

From a business perspective, the Latino community contributes $3 trillion to the economy. “Our audience is a growth driver for clients and nobody else can make that statement,” she said.

For years, Speciale has been trying to get more marketers to spend more per month on Spanish-language advertising.

During last year’s weak ad market, TelevisaUnivision had a historically strong upfront. Last year, the company added nearly 100 new clients after adding about 200 the year before. 

More than 250 of TelevisaUnivision’s ad clients are using the company’s household graph, which now includes nearly 100% of all Hispanics, 

Positioning TelevisaUnivision as a cultural platform could help close the gap between the size of the Hispanic audience and the share of ad dollars spent with Spanish-language media.

“It’s unfortunate that only 2% of media investment is tied to Hispanic, given that we’re 20% of the population,” Speciale said. “That makes no sense. It’s obviously not anywhere near a fair share, so the growth potential is huge.”

Speciale said that TelevisaUnivision was unique because it has viewership growth and advertisers demand for both its linear networks and its streaming service.

TelevisaUnivision said that its streaming service ViX now has 50 million global monthly active users and grew 70% in the U.S. since last year. On Wednesday, the company will launch a new ad-supported premium tier of ViX that will enable marketers to advertise in more of the streaming service’s original content.

ViX also has an expanded roster of ad formats including contextual targeting, interactivity and commercial and social capabilities.

TelevisionUnivision’s new Sistema Unforia enables marketers to connect with the company’s more than 500 music touchpoints from television and radio to live concerts and music awards shows.

Making Music for Sponsors

Advertisers will be able to sponsor three new music-themed opportunities in 2025.

“Lo Nuestro Fest” is a three-day festival of Latin Culture in Miami in February built around Premio Lo Nuestro, the long-running Spanish-language music awards show.

“Casa Creator,” which the company calls the largest gathering of Latin creators ever, will be held in conjunction with Premios Juventud, the company’s youth music awards show.

TelevisaUnivision is also creating a new artist discovery arm to help connect brands to up-and-coming musicians and culture-makers.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize it but all of the stars now in Latin music from Shakira to Peso Pluma to Bad Bunny all started at Univision,“ Speciale said. “A lot of it starts here with our radio stations.” 

“We actually have the pulse of who’s up and coming and a lot of clients have been wanting to lean into who the next hot artist is,” she said.

At its first upfront presentation to advertisers, Amazon Prime Video announced new series and renewed some of its hits.

The streamer, which started running ads in its entertainment programming this year,  is also adding more game shows and producing additional sports documentaries. 

Prime Video reaches 200 subscribers worldwide and 115 million in the U.S., making it the biggest ad-supported streaming service, Mike Hopkins, president of Amazon Prime said.

MGM Plus and Prime Video said they ordered Noir, a live-action series based on the Marvel comic Spider-Man Noir that will star Nicholas Cage.

Harry Bradbeer, who directed Prime Video’s Fleabag, will direct and executive produce the first two episodes.

“Expanding the Marvel universe with Noir is a uniquely special opportunity and we are honored to bring this series to our global Prime Video customers,” said Vernon Sanders, head of television at Amazon MGM Studios.

“The extremely talented Nicolas Cage is an ideal choice for our new superhero and the accomplished producing team with Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Amy Pascal and the incredible team at Sony is dedicated to expanding this franchise in the most authentic way,” Sanders said.

The company is also working on a sequel to its remake of Road House with Jake Gyllenhaal  and a new version of Tomb Raider with Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Also Read: 85% of Amazon Prime Video Subscribers Are on the Ad-Supported Tier

Pop Culture Jeopardy! Is the answer to the question what is the first time that the Sony Pictures Television Game Show Division has collaborated with a streaming service. 

“Pop Culture Jeopardy is its own cultural moment,” said Lauren Anderson, head of AVOD originals unscripted and target programming at Amazon MGM Studios. “With a team-based approach and pop-culture focus, our global Prime Video customers will exclusively experience this innovative spin on Jeopardy! while testing their knowledge on topics that both define and transcend generations.”

Prime Video ordered a fifth season of its diabolical superhero series The Boys, which starts its fourth season on June 13. 

“The Boys could be the best job I’ll ever have. What other show allows me to write about politics, capitalism, family and exploding genitalia, though not in that order,” said Eric Kripke, showrunner for The Boys. “My only problem is that since this year promises to be free of any conflict or misinformation, we’re not sure what to write about.”

The series Mr. & Mrs Smith was renewed for a second season. The series stars Donald Glover and Maya Erskine. 

“The success of the first season, with its incredibly modern, sexy reinvention of the original film, is a testament to the brilliant creators Donald Glover and Francesa Sloane. We are proud to bring you another season filled with unforgettable journeys and new adventures,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios.

Prime Video also confirmed there would be a second season of Cross from Paramount Television Studios and Skydance.

On the unscripted side, JB Smoove will host Buy It Now and Nick Cannon will host Wish List Games. The shows join Are You Smarter That a Celebrity? which is hosted by Kansas City Chief and Swiftie Travis Kelce.  

“With the chance to win cash, prize or simply notoriety, competition and game series are the ultimate wish fulfillment,” said Anderson.  “We are excited to expand our slate of classic, nostalgic title and look forward to making more dreams come true through our original IP.”

Prime Video also greenlit four new sports documentaries.

The shows include a four-part documentary on NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr., a four-part series on the history of the Madden video game, an anthology about epic Game 7s and a true-crime documentary about ChiefsAholic, the Kansas City superfan and serial bank robber.

Prime Video will also have a third season of Coach Prime, looking at Colorado coach Deion Sanders.

The game show The 1% Club will have a preview on May 23 on Prime Video before its official premiere on June 3 on Fox. Episodes will stream on Prime Video after they are broadcast on Fox.

A trailer for the show, hosted by Patton Oswalt, can be seen below.

A lot goes into making The Walt Disney Co.’s upfront presentation.

Transforming a section of the Jacob Javits Convention Center into a space where nearly 4,000 attendees will experience Disney’s storytelling Tuesday afternoon takes more than magic.

More than 150 people worked in preproduction and there were 450 people involved in the actual production, which will use the theme “Connections” to illustrate how Disney Advertising brings audiences and brands together with Disney’s portfolio of media, entertainment and sports.

Material and production elements were shipped in from seven states.

The custom-built presentation space features 350 feet of linear LED tile, designed to immerse the audience in the sight, sound and motion of Disney’s content. There will be four “cosmic hero” screens, each one 34 feet wide by 24 feet tall.

Also Read: Full Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

LED lighting technology called Vanish overlays content in front of programmed lighting on-screen to create a more interactive viewing experience. Disney says the effect recalls theatrical lighting.

All of the equipment and technology ensures that attendees will feel and hear the content throughout the space.

The post-presentation reception will feature a 22-piece string orchestra from Elan Artists that will play modern renditions of tunes from Disney classics.

A dynamic 100-foot long, 10-foot high LED wall with 3D elements will highlight Disney stories. There will also be several interactive and immersive brand activations that will enable buyers and sponsors to take pictures at the College Game Day desk, at the ABC News weather booth or with giant Mickey Mouse ears.

There will be a DJ, Pauli Lovejoy, at the preshow and party. Photographer Brian Bowen Smith will be snapping away in a custom-built portrait studio.

Assisting Disney in putting together the production were NMR Events, a stage engineering and product company, and brand experience agencies Pinerock and MC², which helped support the guest experience and put on the afterparty.

And of course, there will be a bevy of stars from upcoming Disney movies, television shows and streaming productions on stage.

Disney did not say how much all of this costs.

Fox’s upfront presentation, at The Manhattan Center Monday, May 13, kicked off with Michael Strahan and Gordon Ramsay. Strahan said telling the attendees why they should buy ads would be like him running a kitchen, and Strahan said it would be like him playing defensive end. So they turned to a pro, in Jeff Collins, president of ad sales, marketing and brand partnerships, Fox. 

“Innovation has brought profound change to our industry. While some see disruption, we see opportunity,” he said. 

Collins teased the Super Bowl and the presidential election, among other blockbuster events Fox will have on its air. 

Next out was Jon Hamm, executive producer of animated show Grimsburg, on which he plays Marvin Flute. “The show is so special, so unexpected…,” he began, before Will Arnett, host of Lego Masters, interrupted. He had a gift for the guy who plays Marvin Flute–a flute made of Legos. 

Neither Hamm nor Arnett could play it, so Joel McHale, in the cast of Animal Control and host of Crime Scene Kitchen, came out to give it a try. 

Next was Erin Andrews, talking up sports, including women’s NCAA basketball, including a December matchup between USC and UConn with an NFL lead-in. “It’s the game of the season,” she said. 

She introduced Anjali Sud, CEO of Tubi TV. “Tubi is resonating because we stand for something,” she said–entertainment for the cordless generation. 

She mentioned the streaming network’s 200-plus original shows, and Lauren Graham stepped out to talk up her show, The Z Suite, which she called a “multigenerational workplace storyline.” She then translated the Gen Z talk for the crowd as Siena Agudong and Noah Beck shared about their film The QB Bad Boy and Me. 

Then it was Rob Lowe, host of game show The Floor, and in the cast of 9-1-1: Lone Star. 

Season five is “full throttle, with the emergencies and disasters that keep you on the edge of your seat,” Lowe said. 

He then shared about Rescue: HI Surf, a John Wells lifeguard drama that gets Fox’s post Super Bowl slot. Lowe said Wells has produced “some of the most beloved prestige TV of all time.”

Next out was Molly Parker, star of new drama Doc, which she described as “as heart-racing as it is heart-wrenching.”

Strahan, Curt Menefee and Rob Gronkowski were out to talk football, and Fox Sports’ visits to military sites. This season will feature a trip to Coronado, California to meet with the Navy Seals. “Those SEALS do not mess around,” said Gronkowski. 

Menefee segued into other “heroes,” he said, in introducing correspondent Benjamin Hall of Fox News. Hall was seriously injured reporting from Ukraine in 2022. He got a standing ovation as he walked out. “From Ukraine to the Middle East and here at home,” Hall said, Fox News journalists keep America informed.

He said hello to correspondent Trey Yingst, reporting in Israel. Yingst said to Hall, “we’re proud to call you both a colleague and a friend.”

Bret Baier and Dana Perino of Fox News spoke about the election. “We’ll be with America every step of the way,” said Baier. 

They spoke about enhancing coverage with augmented reality and election results down to counties. “This is, no doubt, the Super Bowl of news,” said Perino. 

Then it was Anthony Anderson talking about The Real Full Monty, which sees stars, including Taye Diggs, Tyler Posey and Bruno Tonioli, strip to draw attention to cancer. 

Anderson said he’s hitting the gym, being trained by Gronk and Strahan, to get ready for his unclothing. 

The event DJ, Corinne Fox, introduced her father Jamie, who she works on Beat Shazam with. “Nothing beats working with my dad on Beat Shazam,” she said. 

Jamie Foxx spoke about Fox airing an MLB game at Rickwood Field, which he called America’s oldest ballpark, and one with a rich tradition in the Negro Leagues. He then introduced Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. 

Jeter said he “couldn’t be prouder” about Fox airing the game, and “wouldn’t be where I am today without the sacrifices” of Negro Leagues players. 

Gordon Ramsay came back out with Lisa Vanderpump to talk about Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars, which begins a new season May 22 and sees them each managing a team. “I’m here to talk about our favorite f-word,” said Vanderpump. 

No, not that word. Food. 

“Lisa and I go back a long way,” said Ramsay. 

Joel McHale and Ken Jeong teased each other from the cheap seats. “You were my second favorite guest star on Animal Control this year,” said McHale, Jeong just behind a sloth. 

Then it was Gus Johnson of Fox Sports introducing Deion Sanders, coach of the University of Colorado football team. Sanders said he’s been shopping on the player portal, and “can’t wait to unveil them in front of you all.”

Talk then turned to the FIFA World Cup in the U.S. in 2026. With the final in New Jersey, Strahan noted how MetLife Stadium, his longtime home base, will finally host a champion. 

Then he brought Tom Brady, who joins the Fox football team as an analyst, out. He said his first meeting with Fox reminded him of “the amazing teammates I had for a long period of time.” Brady said he’s psyched to “be a part of the game” once again, and can’t wait to be on “the greatest telecast in football every single week.”

Fox will open with the Dallas Cowboys. 

The football crew of Kevin Burkhardt, Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi were out next to welcome Brady. “With two minutes left in the game, a tie game, who better to analyze it?” said Burkhardt. 

Brady was known for his “let’s f***ing go!” cheer, which Strahan said would not work on broadcast TV. Ramsay saw it differently. “If Tom Brady wants to use the f-word, I think we should let him,” he said, so he, Strahan and Brady wrapped things up with that exuberant utterance. 

With the Super Bowl in New Orleans, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band came out. Ninety minutes after it kicked off, the Fox upfront was done. 

At a time when many are questioning the value of television advertising, NBCUniversal declared that it has more to offer than newcomers like Amazon, Netflix and YouTube.

Closing out that first presentation of what has been known as broadcast upfront week, Mark Marshall, chairman of NBCU advertising sales and partnerships, declared that “this is the future of advertising, right here, right now at NBCUniversal.”

Marshall took on both the other big media companies as well as the digital giants.  

"Over the next few days, you'll hear others tout the power of their technology or they'll tell you it's all about content, or they'll talk about their distribution across streaming or broadcast or cable,” Marshall said.

Also Read: More Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

“But it's not just about one thing,“ he continued. “It's about everything and it's about you. There is no doubt that the industry has changed. But we have been at the forefront of this change. And we've always put advertising in all of you at the center of every innovation. There is no other media company that has this content, this scale, this tech, this data, all in one place.” 

Marshall offered the audience of media buyers and advertisers proof.

In January, NBCU announced what it calls one platform total audience, which enables the creation of media plans that span both linear and streaming inventory. Does it work?

NBCU collaborated with client Amgen and its agency, Omnicom Media Group, to run two parallel campaigns. One was based on total audience, the other was planned the old-fashioned way. The same amount of dollars was put behind both campaigns, Marshall said.

“The results exceeded even our own expectations,” he said, with the total audience campaign delivering 38% more cross-platform reach and a 22% increase in search volume.

Pizza chain Domino’s conducted a similar experiment. For Domino’s, the total audience campaign delivered a 38% increase in sales versus a more traditionally planned campaign.

“Let that sink in for a minute,“ Marshall said. “Domino's has been buying NBCU and its content for decades because it works for their brand. Yet one platform total audience drove a 38% increase in sales just by finding the right connection to the right consumer at the right time. I don't know if anyone in here is interested in 38% more sales, but let us know if you are.”

The digital giants have been offering data showing consumer reaction to their campaign and that has contributed to the shift of ad dollars from traditional media. But advertisers often complain that they don’t always know when or where their ads run on the big digital platforms.

“We did not create another opaque walled garden. We gave visibility to where every single unit ran,“ Marshall said. “Stick with me here. Here at NBC, we have this crazy idea: It's actually your money. You actually deserve to know where every single unit runs. We know not everyone else shares this sentiment and transparency.”

Marshall told the buyers that the stats show that not all advertising impressions are created equal. “Let’s keep that in mind when we negotiate over the next few weeks," he said.

Marshall memorably was thrust into the upfront spotlight a year ago after the sudden departure of Linda Yaccarino, who left NBCU to become CEO of Elon Musk’s Twitter, now known as X.

“To me, probably the biggest surprise of today so far has been that actually I was renewed for season two,” he cracked.

Marshall wasn’t the only funny guy at the upfront.

Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon opened the show signing a sad song that asked “why are we here? What are the upfronts?” But he changed his toon to a more upbeat “the future’s bright at NBC.”

Seth Meyers of Late Night was more to the point.

“It must feel so gratifying that everyone eventually comes back to advertising. Remember when streamers told you we’re going to do television in new ways, so I’m afraid we won’t be needing your little commercials anymore,” Meyers said. “A few years later, every episode of Shogun is interrupted by Whopper, Whopper, Double Whopper.”

Other amusing items from Meyers’s upfront set:

• “NBC is launching a new adventure competition series called Destination X, or as it was originally titled, The Linda Yaccarino Story.”
• “My show is on at 12:30 in the morning, so instead of the upfronts, we sell our at the outbacks. Looking to get in Late Night? Come see me out back by the dumpster.”
• “Peacock continues to prove that the easiest way to make a billion dollars is to spend eight.”
• “I have to brag, it’s been a very good day for me. I found $20 on the street this morning. Long story short, I’m one of the two finalists for Paramount.”
• “NBC has announced it will air a new drama called The Hunting Party. It stars South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and the dog from Frasier. I’d say Kristi Noem would make a good Real Housewife, but Andy Cohen told me she’s a lot, and if he says it …”
• “Bravo announced a Vanderpump Rules spinoff The Valley has been renewed for another season. They’ve also picked up something from Tom Sandoval, and are waiting to learn if it’s contagious.”

The NBCUniversal upfront presentation kicked off at New York’s Radio City Music Hall with an orchestra performing, before Jimmy Fallon, host of The Tonight Show, came out for his own musical numbers. 

“What even is primetime?” he sang, before quipping that NBCU is the only broadcaster left “that can still afford the upfronts.”

Mark Lazarus, NBCUniversal Media Group chairman, was out next. He noted the buzzwords one hears at the upfronts, saying the competition is good at one or two of them, but only NBCU can do all of them. 

Also Read: More Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

“While the others have been spinning, we spent the last year investing,” he said. 

Next out were Shanola Hampton, Jabari Banks and Jesse L. Martin, stars of Found, Bel-Air and The Irrational. 

“No matter if it’s a second season or a second decade, NBC never stops imagining how to make stories better,” Martin said. 

Then Donna Langley, chairman, NBCU Studio Group and chief content officer, came out. “We have the unique ability to bring stories forward, and by doing that, giving voice to visionary artists with something to say,” she said. 

She spoke about the Wicked movie project, which has Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in the cast, and will air November 25. 

Langley noted how Defying Gravity: The Curtain Rises on Wicked will air on NBC and Peacock, with the full NBCU marketing push behind it. “This is how our company shines,” she said, then shared the first trailer anyone has seen. 

Kevin Hart was out next. “I have had so much fun playing in the sandbox at NBCUniversal,” said Hart, who will host an Olympics highlight show with Kenan Thompson. 

Hart and Taraji P. Henson spoke about Peacock shows, including Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, in which they star along with Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle. The limited series is about an armed robbery that takes place the night of a Muhammed Ali title fight. 

“Based on some shit that really happened,” the trailer said. 

They also shared trailers for horror series Teacup and comedy Laid.  

Then it was Wendi McLendon-Covey, Zachary Quinto, Isabella Castillo and Danilo Carrera, talking up new shows on NBC and Telemundo. 

“There is no replacement for broadcast,” said McLendon, star of St. Denis Medical. 

Trailers rolled for St. Denis Medical, Brilliant Minds, Happy’s Place and Sed De Venganza. 

The orchestra then came out to play while the trailer for the Tom Hanks nature series The Americas rolled. 

Amanda Seyfried shared the trailer for her crime drama Long Bright River on Peacock, which she described as a “rich, complex story” about a police officer handling a unique case in Philadelphia. 

Trailers then showed for the gladiator drama Those About to Die, with Anthony Hopkins, and political thriller The Day of the Jackal, with Eddie Redmayne. 

Kenan Thompson, Bowen Yang and Heidi Gardner spoke about Saturday Night Live getting set to turn 50, which will have a primetime special. Yang said “the show both captures the cultural zeitgeist and contributes to it.”

Thompson and Hart spoke about their Olympics highlight show on Peacock.  “I heard every athlete is legally required to wear a beret,” Thompson said of the Paris Games. 

Olympics host Mike Tirico said the Games “will make you cry, will make you cheer,” and noted that they are taking place “in the cultural capital of the world.”

Snoop Dog then came out to talk Olympics with Tirico, Snoop lined up to be a special correspondent. “It’s not the AI Snoop, but the real Snoop,” he said. 

Then it was Cesar Conde, chairman of the NBCU News Group, and Lester Holt, anchor of NBC Nightly News. “In our communities and across the globe, we are living in momentous times,” said Conde. “It is times like these when our audiences know they need the most trustworthy information. It is when we have our highest levels of engagement and when our audiences most rely on us. It’s a responsibility we take very seriously.” 

Holt spoke about what sets NBCU’s news outfits apart. “Our journalists are passionate about what we do,” he said, reporting “without fear or favor.”

Snoop was back out to mention that he’ll coach on season 26 of The Voice, then introduced Michael Buble, performing with the orchestra. After a little rap, he sang “You’re Nobody Until Somebody Loves You.”

Andy Cohen, host of Watch What Happens Live, said the show has been picked up through 2025, and will spend a week in a city to be announced. 

Alan Cumming, host of The Traitors, hosted a video segment with a range of would-be contestants, including Joe Manganiello, Howie Mandel and Nicole Ritchie talking about unscripted shows. 

When Cumming came out, Cohen asked if any of those stars might be on the next season of The Traitors. “No,” he said. “They all failed their auditions spectacularly.”

Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, hosts on Today, were out next to talk holiday programming, including the Thanksgiving parade, the tree lighting and New Year's Eve. Kotb spoke about Little Big Town’s Christmas at the Opry. “A holiday spectacular in true NBC style,” she said. 

Little Big Town then performed, including a few Christmas numbers, before Seth Meyers, host of Late Night, came out. He mentioned finding $20 on the street, which makes him “one of the two finalists for Paramount.”

Mark Marshall, chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU, spoke about connections and advertisers having their product “show up in moments of consumer connection.” 

Kelly Clarkson then came out to sing “Stronger” and “Since U Been Gone.” 

Around an hour and 50 minutes after it began, the NBCU upfront presentation then concluded. 

Fox will share its 2024-2025 schedule at its upfront presentation May 13 in New York, with new shows such as Denis Leary single-cam comedy Going Dutch and the John Wells action drama Rescue: HI-Surf in the lineup. 

Mondays will have 9-1-1: Lonestar and Rescue: HI-Surf, Tuesdays have Accused and Murder in a Small Town, Wednesdays offer The Masked Singer and The Floor, Thursdays air Hell’s Kitchen and Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, Fridays have college football, basketball and the United Football League, Saturdays have sports, and Sundays have NFL On Fox, The OT/animation reruns, then The Simpsons, Universal Basic Guys, Bob’s Burgers and Krapopolis. 

“With outstanding original ideas and world-class talent across both new series and returning favorites, Fox’s 2024-25 schedule is filled with unexpected, unforgettable entertainment in every genre,” said Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade. “Great creative is the center of all we do, and that is reflected in next season’s lineup, as is our ability to attract so many of the industry’s finest storytellers.”   

Returning series include dramas 9-1-1: Lone Star (season five), Accused (season two), Alert: Missing Persons Unit (season three) and The Cleaning Lady (season four); comedy Animal Control (season three); animated series Bob's Burgers (season 15), Family Guy (season 23), The Great North (season five), Grimsburg (season two), Krapopolis (season two) and The Simpsons (season 36); and unscripted series Crime Scene Kitchen (season three), The Floor (season two), Hell's Kitchen (season 23), Lego Masters (season five), The Masked Singer (season 12), MasterChef (season 15), Name That Tune (season five), Next Level Chef (season four) and Special Forces: World's Toughest Test (season three). 

Additional series renewals will be announced later.

Fox did not say when Going Dutch will premiere. 

Other new shows include psychological crime procedural Murder in a Small Town, medical drama Doc and animated comedy Universal Basic Guys. 

Fox will have the Super Bowl Sunday, February 9, after which Rescue: HI-Surf debuts. "There’s no platform like the Super Bowl," said Dan Harrison, executive VP, program planning and content strategy, Fox, on a press call. 

Rescue: HI-Surf follows the personal and professional lives of the lifeguards who protect the North Shore of Oahu. In the cast are Robbie Magasiva, Arielle Kebbel and Adam Demos. Michael Thorn, Fox president, called it "an absolute adrenaline-rush action series" with "real franchise potential."

Rescue: HI-Surf is co-produced by Warner Bros. Television and Fox Entertainment Studios. Matt Kester created the series. 

Based on an Italian series, Doc has Molly Parker as a hard-charging doctor in Minneapolis. After a brain injury erases the last eight years of her life, she has no recollection of patients she’s treated, colleagues she’s crossed, the soulmate she divorced, the man she now loves and the tragedy that caused her to push everyone away. She can rely only on her estranged teen daughter for info. 

Murder in a Small Town is based on the book series Karl Alberg, by L.R. Wright. Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk star. The show follows Alberg, who moves to a quiet coastal town to soothe a psyche that has been battered by big-city police work. But this gentle paradise has more than its share of secrets, Fox teases. 

Fox called the show a "cozy crime drama."

Going Dutch centers on a loudmouth U.S. Army colonel, who, after an unfiltered rant, is reassigned to the Netherlands, where he is punished with a command position at the least important army base in the world. He now finds himself in charge of a base with no guns, no weapons and no tactical purpose. Denis Leary stars. 

Universal Basic Guys comes from Adam and Craig Malamut and centers on brothers who lose their jobs to automation and are given $3,000 a month in a new basic income program. They use their free time and money to find purpose in a world where they’re no longer needed. 

Unscripted shows include competition series Extracted, where “the contestants are not in charge of their destiny.”

The special The Real Full Monty shows a group of male celebrities who volunteer to bare all to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer. It features Anthony Anderson, Taye Diggs, the NFL's Chris Jones, Tyler Posey, Bruno Tonioli and James Van Der Beek. Anderson produces. 

Fox called the show "the most revealing performance of their careers."

Near Christmas, Lego Masters holds its multiple-night Celebrity Holiday Bricktacular. 

New cast members on Accused include Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Nick Cannon and Michael Chiklis.

Fox ordered two seasons of Rob Lowe game show The Floor, and inked a first-look unscripted development deal with Lowe. It also ordered two seasons of Universal Basic Guys.

Fox presents at The Manhattan Center Monday, May 13. 

Television companies expect this year’s upfront to be stronger than last year’s.

“We're in a much better place than we were a year ago going into this upfront presentation,” Rita Ferro, president of global advertising sales at The Walt Disney Co., told B+C.  “It's not 100% back, but it's most definitely better than it was when we were going into the upfronts a year ago.”

A year ago, upfront attendees were greeted by Writers Guild of America picketers as they entered the networks’ presentations. The actors’ union also went on strike, which meant original programming plans and primetime schedules were up in the air.

This year, the stars of new series will be on stage, replacing last year’s cast of game show hosts, reality celebrities and news anchors.

On top of that last year the economy was dealing with high inflation and still recovering from COVID-19 and supply-chain disruptions.

Also Read: Continuing Coverage of the 2024 Upfronts

“We’re finally in a spot where these things are settling a bit,” John Halley, president of advertising sales at Paramount Global, said. “You can see the advertising market operating a little better.”

With more viewing shifting to streaming, upfront spending on traditional linear networks decreased, along with ad prices. Upfront spending on the broadcast networks was down 3% to $9.6 billion. It was rougher for cable networks, which were down 7% to $9.5 billion.

That pattern isn’t changing. In its first-quarter earnings report, Warner Bros. Discovery said spending on its cable networks was down 11% to almost $2 billion, while streaming advertising grew 70% but brought in just $175 million.

As they shift to streaming, the traditional media companies are facing stiffer competition from tech giants like Amazon, YouTube and Netflix, which have launched ad-supported streaming services and will also be putting on upfront presentations this week.

Sports in the Spotlight 

Sports remains the most in-demand inventory for linear networks, but more teams and leagues are moving to streaming, following the National Football League’s Thursday Night Football, which returns to Amazon Prime Video for another season.

 Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. advertising sales officer for Warner Bros. Discovery expects sports to be oversubscribed in the upfront.

In addition to the growing number of official league marketing partners, “you have a lot of new players that are trying to get into sports, some for the first time,” Steinlauf said. “In terms of ad-supported television genres, I would say sports have separated themselves from everything else.”

That means, in addition to late-night hosts, an all-star lineup of athletes will be present during the presentations.

Buyers plan to spend a bigger share of their video budgets during the upfront this year. A survey by Advertiser Perceptions found advertisers spending an average of 53% of their budgets in the upfront, compared to 49% last year. And 34% of clients said they planned to increase upfront spending this year, with 3% expected lower spending.

More of those dollars will go to streaming. Advertisers and buyers said they expect 45% of their upfront buys to be connected-TV inventory, according to Advertiser Perceptions.

That means that while the presentations will try to remind buyers that the industry can still produce premium content, advertisers are also looking for the targeting and proof of performance they expect from digital advertising. So in between clips from pilots and sizzle reels, there will be lots of talk about data and technology.

“We've made tremendous investments around our technology stack that delivers an incredible advertising experience around choice-based interactive advertising experience that's powered by an identity graph that's interoperable across the marketplace,” Ferro said.

Traditional media companies are selling convergence, insisting a combination of traditional and streaming advertising optimizes reach and yields the best return on spending.

Warner Bros. Discovery is taking its ad inventory to market in a way that is “fully harmonized,” chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said on the company’s first-quarter earnings call.

“On the DTC platform, we are enjoying all the benefits that everyone else enjoys in terms of being plugged into all the key marketplace platforms and taking advantage of data partnerships,” Wiedenfels said.

“Also on the traditional linear side, it’s important to remember that with the shift in the distribution landscape,we’ve got a much greater share of virtual MVPDs in the mix,” he said. “That opens up opportunities for us to do targeted advertising with dynamic ad insertion within the linear streams.”

There has long been a debate about whether lavish, star-studded presentations are still an important part of the upfront process. But this year at least, most of the big players are still in, joined by newcomers like Netflix.

Stars Retake the Stage

“I'm excited about the event that we're gonna be doing because last year we didn't have a lot of talent showing up at upfronts across the marketplace,” said Ferro.

At Disney, “you are going to see an incredible event that is really anchored in our storytelling in a way that goes back to what matters most in these platforms where you've all invested in technology,” Ferro said. “We’ve all invested around the ecosystem, and then the difference is content that connects and moves the consumer and ultimately allows brands to be in environments that are brand safe, and shape the hearts and minds of their consumers.” 

No matter how entertaining the upfront presentations are, it will take time for negotiations to be conducted and for deals to be consummated,” said Donna Speciale, president of U.S. advertising sales and marketing at TelevisaUnivision. “Everyone is having conversations. It’s still early and budgets are coming in a lot later, which is similar to the pace of last year. We’re seeing it in scatter, where clients are buying a lot closer to when they want to be on the air. I think the upfront is similar — there is less of a sense of urgency on the client side that deals need to be made by a certain date.”

Heading into the upfront, the advertising market is noticeably healthier than it was a year ago, Rita Ferro, president of global advertising sales at The Walt Disney Co., told B+C.

“We’re in a much better place than we were a year ago going into this upfront presentation,” Ferro said. “It’s not 100% back, but it’s most definitely better than it was.”

More to the point, Disney, which is slated to do an upfront presentation in New York on Tuesday (May 14), has what advertisers are looking to buy. 

“We also have scale across streaming and a pretty significant sports business,” she said. “It’s really where advertisers are spending dollars right now.”

Also Read: NBCUniversal Will Pitch a Combination of Content, Tech in Upfront

With ESPN, Disney controls about 35% of televised live sports. A lot of the big-ticket items — such as halftime sponsorships or Home Depot’s involvement with College GameDay — are sold on a multiple-year basis.

“Our multiyear sports business has never been more robust than it is right now,” Ferro said. “To see brands come in and commit long-term, multiyear investments around sports, to me, that’s always a good indicator when there’s a good market. Last year we didn’t see what we’re seeing this year.”

Sports commands engagement partly because it’s live, and Disney has other live moments on the ABC broadcast network.

Audiences tune in to watch shows like American Idol, Dancing With the Stars and The Bachelor live, as well as awards shows like The Oscars and specials like Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest.

“Live moments matter,“ Ferro said. “They bring audiences to the platform. News is part of that. We’re very bullish on ABC having a place in the portfolio.”

Ferro noted that ABC’s surprise hit, The Golden Bachelor, got on the schedule partly because of last year’s strikes by writers and actors. 

“The strike allowed us to actually take a chance and go there, and it performed beyond our expectations,“ Ferro said. “So much so that there are going to be more announcements next week, on stage, of what's happening with that franchise.“

Ferro said advertisers continue to want to be on broadcast as part of their media plan. 

“I think the largest opportunity for us is really how we envision the primetime lineup to be complementary and additive to incremental reach in terms of what’s happening on streaming, what’s happening on sports,” she said. ABC will have “a primetime lineup that really drives ultimately incremental reach, which is what marketers are looking for and how we measure and deliver that for, and package it for our partners.”

Speaking of streaming, on its earnings call Tuesday, Disney said it had 22.5 million subscribers for the ad-supported version of Disney Plus.

“[That’s] more than 50% of people who are signing up for Disney Plus, so it’s been pretty significant in terms of its ramp-up,” Ferro added.

Disney has invested in its own ad tech stack and identity graph. Now both Disney Plus and Hulu are on Disney’s own ad server.

“All of that advertising innovation, whether it’s choice-based units, interactive units, situational units, etc., all of that now you can buy across all of our services,” Ferro said.

“And we recently launched the ability to buy all of those programmatically as well,” she added. ”So it’s really a fully integrated experience now where the best of all of our technology and our innovation is rolling out across the full suite.”

Also Read: Nexstar Pitches Sports on The CW, Extra Reach via Stations (Upfronts)

Ferro said more and more ad clients want to buy through biddable transactions.

“We are allowing people to buy and transact across our total portfolio the way they want to, and measure and ultimately drive value through audience,“ she said. “So it’s really about reducing friction and allowing clients to buy the way they want to buy.”

Ferro expects Disney will use Nielsen for most of its transactions, but it wasn’t clear whether most buyers would be using Nielsen’s panel data or its newer panel-plus-big data ratings. She said she was surprised that some of the big agency holding companies are balking at Nielsen’s new system.

“I actually thought we would move everyone in big data, and it’s interesting to see the hesitation around that,” she said.

“What’s happening in this marketplace is you’re gonna see a lot of different measurement currencies being used,” Ferro said. “And ultimately Nielsen, I think, is still the underlying currency regardless of who you talk to. But there are secondary currencies being used for secondary guarantees or some partners, depending on certain categories that may want to go with something else.”

One of Disney’s more recent innovations is Disney's Magic Words, a contextual tool that puts the right ads in the right content. Magic Words was introduced during Disney’s tech and data presentation at CES in January.

“Very few brands can create magic in the way that Disney can,“ Ferro said. “Immediately, there wasn’t a single [ad agency holding company] who didn’t say, ‘I want to be in.’ 

“It is very clear that when you have the right data informing the right scene and the right emotion, and having the right advertising to compliment that, that ultimately you understand that the potential outcome of that,” she said. “The performance of that is going to be stronger than a traditional advertising break. And so that’s where we’re really spending a lot of time, to make sure that as part of this data we get it right so that we can actually bring results to the market and really talk about what the next wave is.”

If upfront advertisers are looking for reach, Nexstar Media Group believes its base of local stations gives it a unique way to achieve that goal.

Michael Strober, chief revenue officer at Nexstar, told Broadcasting+Cable that even advertisers interested in the sports programming that Nexstar has added to The CW Network, can benefit from a national-local approach.

“If you care about college football, we have ACC football and you can buy that on The CW,” Strober said.  “Then you can extend that reach across all of the Nexstar affiliates on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, who all carry college football every week,” he said.

So while some debate the merits of linear versus streaming, Nexstar is offering a better way for advertisers to get closer to their customers.

“You can still be involved in the same content and you can get it on linear television. We can light up certain geographic areas if you have a big store opening or you want to do something out of an auto dealership,” he said.

Nexstar calls its national plus local approach total audience. That calls for a different measurement system, and Strober says Nexstar is recommending Comscore as the single source for measuring both local and national.

Comscore uses the same methodology for its local measurement as for its nation ratings, which means you can add up local viewers and national viewers.

Sports are among the most popular properties with advertisers, and Nexstar’s addition of LIV golf, ACC football and basketball, WWE NXT wrestling and NASCAR racing are bringing new advertisers to The CW.

Strober notes that The CW will have over 500 hours of sports programming by 2025, up from zero before Nexstar bought the network.

That’s helped add more than 25 new advertisers to the CW across 2023 and the first quarter of 2024.

Nexstar is also building a data-driven video product and is looking to do more live, in-market activations. It is working with EDO and Innovid to show how effective advertising on Nexstar is.

The best practices Nexstar develops for its national business will be available in local markets, Strober said.

Nexstar’s upfront slogan is “We got Next,” a play not only on the parent company’s name, but a reference to the up and comers who appear on the network, from the Xfinity drivers who will become tomorrow NASCAR stars, the NXT wrestlers who will graduate to the main event and the college athletes bound for the NFL and the NBA.

Nexstar has also remade The CW primetime lineup, broadening its audience from the target audience of young adults the CW’s superhero programming was designed for.

Also Read: The CW President Dennis Miller Talks Up Net’s Reboot and What’s Coming Next

Also in the Nexstar portfolio of up-and-comers is NewsNation, the cable channel, and The Hill, the online politics site.

Strober noted that NewsNation got the last Republican primary debate. It was simulcast on NewsNation and The CW and drew 4 million viewers, raising the network’s profile. It recently appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch and in the final episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

“Our tagline is News for All America,” he said. “We also refer to our viewers as the moderate majority.”

Strober said NewsNation is in the market with election packages for advertisers who want to sponsor debates, election night and other political coverage on a network that’s not polarizing.

How will the market develop? Strober says it’s still pretty early, but some things appear clear.

“The linear market will be down because the supply is getting smaller,” he said. “We know that sports is something that people are going to want to continue to support and invest in, and luckily we have that.”

For Nexstar, “It’s really about bringing more and more new advertisers to the networks. It doesn’t take a lot to move the needle and I think we’re being very responsible in asking advertisers to get on board with us,” he said. “I think we have a compelling story. We are adding new capabilities and we have a growth story. We’re bringing them the things they want.”

Advertisers are looking to reach the right audiences and tell their stories inside compelling content, Karen Kovacs, president of client partnerships at NBCUniversal Advertising and Partnerships, tells B+C.

NBCU is set up to respond to both of those needs during the upfront, Kovacs says.

“Our partners want to tell stories with our stories to the right strategic audiences,” she said. “It’s really nice to be able to deliver on both the premium content piece as well as having the tech innovations and the scale” they need to do the job.

In terms of content, NBCU has some big tentpoles coming up, starting with the Paris Summer Olympics.

“You’re going to see a lot of innovation as to how we’re storytelling around the Olympics,” she said.

After the Olympics, NBCU is in the market selling sponsorships for the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live.  The celebration will include a Friday-night concert at Radio City Music Hall right before the 50th anniversary broadcast.

Some key sponsors have already bought SNL packages, Kovacs said.

“We’re going to kick off the celebration coming right out of the Olympics this summer,” she said. “It’s SNL. It’s multigenerational. The brand has tremendous influence on our culture.”

Sports will also continue to be driver for NBCU, which will have the Super Bowl in 2026. That year it will also have the Milan Winter Olympics and the World Cup on Telemundo.

NBCU has also been investing in technology to help advertisers identify the audiences the will help them reach their marketing goals.

“We’ve really seen an industry shift taking place with strategic audiences,” Kovacs said. “They are already making up half of our linear and streaming business and it continues to grow.”

NBCU recently launched its one-platform total audiences, which uses artificial intelligence to help find strategic audiences at scale and forecast the size of those audiences across linear and streaming.

In the new media environment, tech companies are not only competing with video advertising, but increasingly participating in the upfront.

“We think we’re in a really interesting position,” Kovacs said. “We sort of stand alone in that we are a media powerhouse and we have tech prowess.”

Much of NBCU’s advertising innovation has originated with its Peacock streaming service.

Peacock has been expanding the amount of shoppable content it streams.

It is also going to be launching a product called virtual concessions, which gives viewers an opportunity to shop for food, beverages and snacks so they don’t have to leave the viewing experience.

Kovacs said it is pretty early to predict how the upfront market will go.

“Q4 looked pretty good,“ she said. “We saw some strengthening in the marketplace.” 

The strength of Olympic advertising has NBCU feeling optimistic because the Paris Games are on track to generate the most ad revenue in the history of the Olympics, and NBCU has already set a record for digital revenue.

NBCU also sees positive trend in some product categories, with improvement in consumer packaged goods and pharmaceuticals, Kovacs said.

Travel is sort of evening out, and the tech category is lagging a bit and hasn’t fully bounced back,” she said.

Amazon, which has added commercials to Amazon Prime Video, is rolling out new interactive ad formats that will enable advertisers to engage streamers and sell stuff to them.

A week before its upfront presentation, Amazon introduced its Shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads and interactive brand trivia ads.

“Amazon Ads continues to reimagine the streaming TV experience with interactive ad formats that are seamlessly shoppable and help advertisers meaningfully connect with customers,” Alan Moss, VP, global advertising sales for Amazon Ads, said. 

“We are developing innovative experiences to help brands better engage with customers, as we work to transform streaming advertising through our differentiated combination of reach, first-party signals, and ad tech,” Moss said. “Ads in Prime Video provide an unparalleled experience for advertisers to deliver on any full-funnel marketing objective — whether it’s awareness, consideration, or conversion.”

Amazon increased the number of ads appearing on Prime Video earlier this year. Instead of asking subscribers if they were willing to watch ads in exchange for a cheaper subscription, Amazon decided to add the commercials and offer viewers who don’t like commercials an option to keep their service ad-free by paying an extra $2.99 a month.

According to Hub Entertainment Media, the strategy resulted in 85% of Prime Video subscribers being available to see commercials in entertainment programming, much higher than other streamers that have launched ad-supported tiers. 

Prime Video said it has an average monthly ad-supported reach of over 200 million global customers. 

Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football telecasts have always been ad-supported.

The new formats introduced by Prime Video are:

• Shoppable carousel ads enable brands to present a sliding lineup of products that customers can explore on Amazon and add to their cart using most living-room remotes. The ad automatically pauses so that customers can browse, and automatically resumes play when ad interaction has stopped.
• Interactive pause ads enable customers to discover and engage with brands when they decide to pause the show or movie they’re streaming. When viewers press pause on their living room remote, they will see a translucent ad featuring brand messaging and imagery, along with an “Add to Cart” and “Learn More” creative overlay.
• Interactive brand trivia ads entertain potential customers with factoids about their product while giving them the opportunity to shop on Amazon, learn more about services and products, and even unlock rewards. Customers can use their living-room remote to add a product to their cart, request information via email and claim rewards like Amazon shopping credits with the purchase of eligible items.

Amazon says its research shows that interactive ads are more effective in boosting engagement rates across the customer shopping journey, driving 10 times more product page views and conversions than non-interactive formats.

"Amazon's engagement with consumers throughout the funnel is unique,” says Geoffrey Calabrese, chief investment officer for Omnicom Media Group North America. “With the ad innovations we are seeing from inside of their streaming offering, our clients are now able to test and learn at scale the true power of streaming TV."

Paramount Advertising is pushing to put a positive spin on its performance as this year’s upfront market approaches.

Big hits on a broadcast network? CBS has them with Tracker and Elspeth. Big ratings for specials? Check. Another season of Yellowstone? Yes. Giving clients free attribution research so they can see their return on investment? Done.

That hit list has been overshadowed a bit by the corporate intrigue at Paramount, with bidders for the company coming and going.

But John Halley, president of advertising for Paramount, told Broadcasting+Cable that those headlines are mere background noise as the company met with its clients. 

“It doesn't really matter to them,” Halley said of the clients he talked to. “The question is: How can we enable their vision? How can we help advertisers achieve their goals? That's the topic of the day. And that’s what’s going to ultimately drive our messaging and performance in the upfront.” 

Paramount held a series of meetings with agency media buyers and advertisers to spell outfits upfront plans, instead of holding a big event at a grand venue like Carnegie Hall.

“We have an amazing story to tell,” Halley said.

While Paramount’s ownership may be in question, the people in ad sales who service their accounts won’t, Halley noted.

That’s important because the job of ad sales has changed, and the upfront is morphing rather than disappearing.

“The business is moving from one that used to be a singular ad platform measured by sample and into one that’s multiplatform and there’s a lot more data,“ he said. “It’s sold on Identity and it’s measured on census.” 

Paramount, and Viacom before that, were among the earliest in trying to use data to target television advertising. Now Paramount is looking to bring the full marketing funnel to the living room. 

“Even though consumption is migrating into streaming environments, what we call TV has really been viewed as kind of a top-of-the-funnel awareness generator,” Halley said. 

“Here's the change: It doesn't have to be,“ he continued. “There are so many interesting data sets. Retail media has fundamentally changed how advertisers can understand the effectiveness of their marketing.”

With a lot of data at their disposal, digital media platforms claim credit for sales that TV commercials inspire.

“The onus is on us to show brands investing in advertising how it’s working up and down the funnel because, as we say, all media ultimately is performance media,” he said.

Paramount is showing off its advanced advertising products, plus new attribution products capabilities with Mastercard and EDO. Paramount is providing attribution data for all advertisers when they buy a campaign.

“We always say performance is Paramount and Paramount is performance and it’s our mission to show performance in our ad buys,” he said.

The TV advertising market has not been strong and last year’s upfront was difficult for the networks. Ad revenue at Paramount’s traditional media business was down 15% to $2.3 billion in 2023. Ad revenue from direct-to-consumer products was up 14% to $526 million.

“Believe it or not, we’re only now really coming out of the economic dislocations of COVID,” Halley notes.

That was followed by supply chain disruptions, inflation interest rates and not-so-soft landings.

But now, Halley sees signs to be optimistic about.

“You can see the advertising market operating a little better than it has been,” he said. “I would say just organically there's a few points Improvement.”

And that’s enough to make Halley think he can achieve his volume and price goals.

“We will get there,“ he said. “Yeah, I'm confident that we're going to have a good outcome here.” 

Giant media buyer Publicis is telling network sales executives that it does not think Nielsen’s new panel-plus-big-data currency is ready for this upfront.

Publicis will stick with Nielsen, using the measurement company’s traditional panel-based ratings. The media buyer is eager to use Nielsen’s big data product when it meets its standards, according to people involved in preliminary upfront discussions.

Publicis declined to comment for this story.

Nielsen has acknowledged that it needs to improve on its panel-based ratings system, which has dominated the TV audience measurement business for decades.

The upstart companies challenging Nielsen are basing their audience estimates on big data from set-top boxes and smart TVs. They say big data from millions of households is better for measuring today’s fragmented viewing universe than a panel of just 40,000 homes. Big data is also required for the way marketers now target specific audiences with their TV advertising.

Nielsen has been working on a new ratings stream that uses big data, with its panel serving as a “truth set” that enables it to create person-level data and adjust for errors, biases and other imperfections in the big data sets it works with.

Last month, Nielsen announced that it would make its panel-plus-big-data measurement product available for use as its preferred currency for transacting advertising deals effective in September, when upfront deals cut this spring and summer will take effect. Nielsen will also continue to produce its panel-only ratings, and customers can use that as currency if they want.

"We've worked through the lengthy audit and accreditation process, and are confident that we will answer the outstanding questions," a Nielsen spokesperson said. "We understand that bringing major product enhancements to the marketplace requires our clients to adapt and embrace change."  

Publicis has been a key player in testing Nielsen’s new methodologies along with the Walt Disney Co. 

One of Publicis’ concerns is that it has less than a year of what Nielsen calls “impact data,” a sample of  what the new ratings would look like if they were in effect this TV season. Publicis does not believe it has a sufficient amount of historical data to be able to make projections about how many people will see the commercials it plans to buy.

It’s not good business to invest billions of dollars in commercials without reliable projections, media buying sources noted.

The Nielsen impact data also has not been stable, with big fluctuations. And while some of the changes resulting from a change in methodology seem to make sense, it also includes anomalies that defy explanation–another sign the data is not ready for prime time.

On top of that, a lot of the data generated covers the period when the Writers Guild of America and actors union SAG-AFTRA were on strike, eliminating most of the original programming on linear networks and boosting streaming. That also makes it hard to project when the broadcast networks will start their fall schedules.

The big-data products from other measurement companies are similarly not ready for this upfront, in Publicis’s view. That's why the media agency will continue to use the Nielsen panel data many in the industry call outdated as its currency for transactions.

Publicis is hardly the only client with concerns about Nielsen’s big data methodology. Nielsen had planned to roll out its big data a year ago, but admitted it wasn’t fully baked.

After the pandemic cut the number of people participating in its panel, Nielsen lost Media Rating Council accreditation for its panel-based national measurement system. It regained the accreditation for its panel-based ratings, but there have been delays in getting approval for adding big data. 

Nielsen decided to make its panel-plus-big data rating available without MRC accreditation.

At the same time, Nielsen competitors VideoAmp, Comscore and  iSpot received various levels of certification from the buyers and sellers participating in the U.S. Joint Industry Council on Measurement. Nielsen has declined to work with the JIC.

In March, Comscore received MRC accreditation for measuring household-level viewing. 

Using data from 45 million households and 75 million Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku, Vizio and Comcast devices, Nielsen’s panel-plus-big-data measurement produces audience estimates that are 4% to 5% higher than employing panels alone. Ratings for most shows are up slightly or flat, Nielsen said.

But for some networks, like Spanish-language giant TelevisaUnivision, the gains are much larger. TelevisaUnivision plans to use the new system in the upfront.

A special evening performance by multiplatinum singer Becky G will provide a memorable conclusion to TeievisaUnivision’s Casa Cultura upfront event on May 14.

The Spanish-language media giant will open its upfront event in the morning with a presentation headed by Donna Speciale, president of U.S. advertising sales and marketing, who will describe how TelevisaUnivision can help marketers reach the fast-growing Hispanic audience.

The event is being held in New York at HK Hall, which is being transformed into a Casa Cultura, giving buyers and clients a taste of Spanish flavor.

In the event, guests are invited back to hear Becky G.

“We are thrilled to have Becky G headline a special evening performance that will celebrate the power of and passion for Latin music, embodying the dynamism of La Cultura and its impact on American culture,” Speciale said. No word if Speciale will join Becky G on stage.

Becky G is a songwriter, actress and activist who performed “The Fire Inside” from the movie Flamin’ Hot during the 2024 Oscar telecast. She also recently hosted and performed at the Latin American Music Awards on Univision, the first bilingual awards show on U.S. TV.

“TelevisaUnivision creates an invaluable space and spotlight on the experience of Latinos in the U.S. and around the world,” Becky G said. “I’m excited to be a part of this event and celebrate nuestra Cultura con mi comunidad!”

Last year, TelevisaUnivision said it had its best upfront in terms of volume in nearly a decade, also bucking industry trends in pricing.

A record number of advertisers bought schedules in last year’s upfront and the company said it closed 2023 with a record number of new clients.

Revry, a network celebrating queer culture. said its second annual NewFront presentation will be a cabaret-type spectacle showcasing the spirit of the LGBTQ+ community and brands can reach its members.

The presentation will be headlined by Carmen Carrera, host of Revry’s Drag Latino; vogue maestro Dashaun Wesley, co-host of Rery’s Pride Ball; and Murray Hill, the legendary drag king and actor. 

Revry will highling programming including its first drag king competition series King of Drag. It will also have a new installment of Pride Ball and Season 3 of Drag Latino.

Revry will also talk about its PrismRiot advertising network, which enables brands to engage with premium LGBTQ+ audiences through programmatic technology.

PrismRiot filters and makes 250M LGBTQ+-aligned CTV impressions available, streaming the process of connecting with the queer community.

“Revry’s presence at the 2024 IAB NewFronts is a vibrant celebration of queer culture and its impactful role in shaping the media landscape,” Damian Pellicione, co-founder and CEO of Revry, said. “Our cabaret-themed presentation will be immersive, highlighting how brands can connect with LGBTQ+ audiences. As a diverse-owned and targeting media company, we are proud to be the vanguards in this space.”

Remember Leave It to Beaver? Bewitched? Dragnet? When cable ratings were rising?

FETV is looking to let media buyers and advertisers trying to figure out what to do with their cable ad dollars know that, even in this cord-cutting era, its ratings have grown and that it has brand-safe shows that people watch.

In his second upfront as executive VP for ad sales, MIchael DuPont told B+C he found that too few buyers knew about FETV, or that FETV stands for Family Entertainment Television.

They were surprised to hear that there was a fully-distributed cable network with safe programming that delivers against Nielsen rating guarantees in-flight, he said.

Also Read: FETV Marking 10th Anniversary With Graphics, Promos, Social Content

In a tough market last year, when buyers were looking for double-digit price rollbacks, FETV had a good upfront, with revenue up 28%.

DuPont was able to accomplish that by adding advertisers — 50% of its clients were new to FETV. It also turned away about 25% of the dollars from returning advertisers who demanded “ridiculous” price cuts.

DuPont is optimistic about this year’s market. 

“I see no reason that this upfront is not going to be as successful or more successful for us than last year’s,” he said.

FETV is taking its upfront pitch to about 160 agencies and advertisers. This year, about 65% of the presentations are in-person, instead of via Zoom. 

“It’s a nice change. People pay attention a little more when you’re standing up in front of them versus on a screen,” DuPont said.

The presentation uses the theme “We Are Family,” and DuPont prefers calling the network Family Entertainment TV rather than by its initials.

“The family part is really an important element because Family Entertainment is family owned, which means as a company we can value the success of our partners’ business and not be beholden to Wall Street,” he said.

That translates into some of the most realistic ratings projections in the marketplace, DuPont said.

Family also means brand-safe programming and co-viewing within the household, he said. 

“We the name is family, we don’t want to tell our audience what their family should look like and that’s something the owners continually embrace, which I think separates ourselves from some other networks who are using the word family,” DuPont said.

In the presentation, FETV notes that while ratings slipped 4% last year, viewership has grown 30% over the past three years. Amid the rush of viewers away from most other basic cable entertainment networks,  FETV has risen enough to get into the same ballpark as better known (and higher priced) channels.

“If you’re looking to lower your costs, you should definitely take a look at us,” DuPont said.

FETV programming features dramas, comedies and westerns. New vintage shows coming to  FETV later this year include Dragnet and My Three Sons.

FETV will also be following some of its rivals by packaging holiday movies at Christmas time.

FETV thinks it stacks up well against its long-tail, family-friendly competitors, such as Great American Family, INSP or UPtv.

For buyers that already buy those other networks, DuPont counters that because there is a low level of viewer duplication between FETV and those other networks.

Advertisers on rival networks might say “we’re getting that audience,” he said, “Well no, you’re actually not. You’re adding reach by adding us.”

FETV is pointing to its length of tune-in — at 32 minutes, among the highest in cable — as a sign viewers are loyal and sticking around to watch commercials.

DuPont acknowledged FETV’s viewers are mostly old and retired, which affects their income.  But they rank high on the wealth index. 

“They’re very high on accumulated wealth, he said. ”They’ve got second homes.” That makes FETV’s audience surprisingly attractive to financial services advertisers.

“Anybody who’s targeting someone under the age of 49 is going to have a rough time in linear cable,” DuPont noted. “Our audience is the loyal TV viewer who likes linear cable and is still watching.”

In addition to FETV, parent company Family Broadcasting Corp., has launched Family Movie Classics, which is available in 25 million homes.

“It’s the only ad-supported classic movie network,” DuPont said.

FMC is not yet Nielsen-rated but DuPont expects it will be by the end of the year, which means general-market advertisers will be able to buy it in next year’s upfront.

For now, FMC runs direct-response advertising. FMC is letting direct response advertisers sponsor movies, an unusual move clients have embraced, DuPont said.

As it turns out, the audience for FMC has been younger than for FETV, so the company is planning to launch a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel, FMC Plus, in the next couple of months.

FETV has also added depth to its ad sales team, hiring VPs Katie Lombardi from Paramount, Matthew Yox from Warner Bros. Discovery and Michael Claffey from AMC Networks.

“Even in the scatter marketplace in the past couple of quarters, we’ve seen the effect of these people who obviously have the right relationships,” DuPont said.

While so much of the TV advertising business has faced unprecedented change as technology enables more consumer choice and a variety of new ways to spend their money, this year’s upfront might not look very different from last year’s, a new survey by iSpot.tv found.

And despite the gloom and doom about linear television, advertisers still aren’t ready to shift a lot of ad dollars to streaming.

The iSpot survey found that 27% of advertisers plan to spend either a bit more or much more during this year’s upfront, compared to last year. 

The advertisers who expected to spend much more were down a bit to 3% from 5%, while 54% said spending would be about the same, little changed from 53%.

Surprisingly, advertisers said they wouldn’t be pouring money into streaming. The share of clients spending more than 20% of their budgets on streaming was steady at 30%. There was a big drop in the share of advertisers spending 5% to 10% of their budgets on streaming, to 12% from 16%. 

Meanwhile the number of marketers spending from 11% to 15% of their budgets on streaming rose to 25% from 20%. 

Hulu is the biggest winner among the streamers, with 75% of the advertisers responding saying they’re buying the Disney-controlled platform. Peacock attracted dollars from 51% of advertisers; followed by Paramount Plus and YouTube TV, with 47% each; and Roku, with 41%.

What are advertisers finding difficult? Fragmentation was the biggest headache, followed by cross-platform reach and frequency management and allocation across publishers.

With that in mind, 58% of advertisers said they don’t receive data on linear and streaming overlap from their streaming vendors.  

The iSpot report found that 87% of advertisers that spend more than $250 million were interested in new currencies.

The potential benefits from new currencies including eliminating inefficient ad spend, the ability to reach audiences with precision over screens. 

New currencies also help avoid brand harm while making faster decisions, 

iSpot said it surveyed more than 260 marketers from 177 brands, advertisers and agencies about their plans for the upfront. The survey was distributed over one month from February 20 to March 12.

It’s a good time to be in the women’s sports business, and during the upcoming upfront, the E.W. Scripps Co. will be pushing its WNBA and NWSL franchise nights as a way to get more advertisers spending more money on Ion and its other television properties.

“Scripps is all in with what matters right now,” Brian Norris, chief revenue officer for Scripps, told Broadcasting+Cable.

Better known as a local station owner, Scripps in addition to sports provides national advertisers with its Scripps News and Court TV channels, as well as entertainment networks like Bounce, Grit and Laff that are available both over digital broadcast and free ad-supported streaming television (FAST). 

“I believe that our upfront will be focused and led by our women's sports offering that live sports offering and giving advertisers to an opportunity to be first movers with us from a sports standpoint and and using that as a foundation for for everything else that we transact ,” Norris said.

The new Scripps will have its first splashy upfront events in New York and Chicago this week and the theme the company has chosen is  “The Power of Connection.”

“Our audience is strong and they continue to fuel growth in our portfolio despite the most significant headwinds in our industry’s history,” Norris said. “Against the marketplace backdrop of double-digit losses, the Scripps portfolio is growing and this is fueled by growth on Bounce, Grit and Ion Mystery.”

Scripps says 95% of its linear viewers watch live — that’s 7% higher than the average cable network among adults 25 to 54.  

Those viewers are engaged, according to TVision, which measures how long viewers are paying attention during each commercial break in a show. The attention-to-duration index for Scripps network programming is 40% higher than the competition, TVision said, with Laff coming in first.

“We're connecting with our audiences and our viewers. We're connecting with our fans. We're connecting with our communities,” Norris said. And during the upfront it will be connecting with media buyers and their agencies.

Media buyers and advertisers are stepping up to support women’s sports and Scripps is there to help them.

“Marketers are flooding the zone to meet this increase in demand, and early movers are seeing major returns on their ad spend,” he said. “Investing in women's sports is just good business and it's so much more than that.

Scripps women sports sponsors already include State Farm, DoorDash, Ally and Adobe.

Demand should only increase once record-setting college scorer Caitlin Clark is drafted by the Indiana Fever of the WNBA.

Ion will have eight Fever games on Friday nights during the WNBA’s 14 week season, starting with a game against the Los Angeles Sparks on May 24.

Beside women’s basketball and soccer, Ion will continue to air the popular off-network series that have already made it a Top 5 broadcast network, outperforming every cable entertainment channel, Norris noted.

The addition of sports should bring more advertisers and ad dollars to Ion, Norris said.

“For years Ion has provided incredible efficiencies for advertisers. Now I think we can still provide those efficiencies for advertisers, but we also have something that differentiates us from the competition with women's sports,” he said.

“The benefit for us is going to be to expose advertisers–new advertisers in particular–to the entire scripts portfolio,” Norris said.

Ion has also become one of the most popular FAST channels, which ranks in the Top 5 on Vizio and Samsung in its first year streaming.

Ion, Ion Mystery, Ion Plus, Scripps News and Court TV all run simultaneous feeds across linear and streaming television.

Scripps viewing on fast was up 93% in 2023

“It's almost impossible to find quality professional live sports in the fast environment,” Norris said. “And so we made the decision to make our live sports, fully available in a simulcast within the FAST environment and advertisers are enjoying that.”

Scripps clients benefit because ads that run in both FAST and broadcast deliver 68% more reach than linear alone, Norris said.

Scripps will be launching a new on-air look for Ion (that will be reflected on Ion Mystery as well.) The new look will be supported with a year-long marketing campaign.

Norris also said Scripps has three of the top six networks for delivering African-American audiences, with Ion at No. 2, Bounce at No. 3 and Grit at No. 6

“We have a proven track record of authentic connection with African-American audiences anchored by our Network bounce,” Norris said.

Bounce will be adding a new original series Mind Your Business on June 1 and returning its popular show Johnson on August. 3

Scripps has also be ratcheting up Scripps News, which Norris said was built on Scripps’ 140-year-old bedrock of journalistic Integrity, connected to local communities through 39 local stations newsrooms and 14 national news bureaus the country.

“It's never been more important to support trusted objective journalism, but who can Brands trust? Key industry observers have independently rated Scripps News at the very top of the industry in terms of trustworthiness reliability and brand safety,” Norris said.

Scripps is also selling the 100th anniversary edition of the The National Spelling Bee in the upfront.

"The Bee is one of the most flexible and established partnership platforms, delivering real results for our partners," Norris said. Last year’s Bee generated a 26% increase in perceived value for Scripps’ consumer packaged goods client and a 48% lift in brand favorability for its quick service restaurant client.

In the end, Scripps has a simple upfront message for advertisers.

“Simply put we are planting a flag as a champion for women's sports. We're thrilling viewers with TV's most watched dramas. We're inspiring and empowering multicultural audiences,” Norris said. “We're informing with objective context-driven news, and we're reaching viewers on every TV platform.”

In the film Field of Dreams, a voice tells Kevin Costner, “If you build it, he will come.”  

AMC Networks, like most other cable programmers, has suffered from cord-cutting, fewer linear viewers and lower ad revenue as brands follow eyeballs to streaming. In response, AMC has built a streaming distribution system to supplement cable and an ad tech system designed to give media buyers what they want in terms of automation, data targeting and return on investment.

All of that is combined with AMC’s legacy of high-quality scripted dramas, dating back to Mad Men.

“Content is still a very big differentiator for AMC networks,” AMC chief revenue officer Kim Kelleher told Broadcasting+Cable.

In addition to unveiling a slate of upcoming shows and its latest ad-tech wonders, AMC at its upfront presentation for advertisers will roll out ad-supported versions of more of its subscription streaming services and announce that its Content Room branded content unit will ratchet up its production of shows advertisers can sponsor.

AMC cut back on programming spending in 2023. This year’s production will be on par with last year, Kelleher said. The company will be telling upfront buyers about how it is extending its universes of zombies, vampires and witches while adding series like Nautilus, a fresh look at Captain Nemo.

At the same time, AMC must reverse its falling ad sales numbers. For 2023, AMC’s domestic ad sales fell 20% to $634 million.

“We've stayed so committed to the long-form, premium dramas while so many others I feel are short-cutting on at this, leaning much more heavily into quick production and reality,” she said. “Buyers still can access the premium programming and shows that we deliver and take advantage of the data-targeting capabilities that we have.”

That content is now available to viewers over 30 different endpoints, which has boosted total viewership to record levels.

“When we pulled all of the endpoints together into Audience Plus [AMC’s advanced insights and data-targeting platform], you could actually transact across all of them and we saw that we reached 91 million homes,” Evan Adlman, executive VP, commercial sales and revenue operations at AMC Networks, said. “With the depth of our library, we are seeing an average of about 480 million hours of viewership a month.

“When you combine that together with the data-targeting capabilities that we have, you really can narrow in on an audience within the very large-scale reach that we have,” he said.

About 72% of AMC’s national linear footprint is addressable-enabled, and 40% of that footprint can be brought programmatically, Adlman said.

“We hope what everyone in the audience hears on Wednesday is that we heard you,“ Adlman said. “For years, you've been saying, ‘If you build it we will come.’ And I really feel like we're at a point where we’ve built it and we’re asking in partnership for the advertisers and marketers to really utilize what we've built.” 

Unfortunately, at this point, the ability of programmers to monetize content on nonlinear platforms has lagged the shift of viewers to those platforms.

“Are we going as fast as we’d like? No, never,” Adlman said. “But we at AMC Networks are slowly and steadily shifting the monetization into those new distribution endpoints.” 

A shortage of proven measurement solutions has kept some marketers from making the kinds of cross-platform deals AMC is seeking, but Adlman noted that marketers who are still picking between platforms are missing a lot of the audience.

“Meanwhile, the buyers that are buying strategic audiences are fully comfortable with the way we deliver measurement and verification,“ he said. “We just need to get more people in the industry to come to that table [and take advantage of those capabilities.”

A More Interactive Upfront

AMC has designed this year’s upfront — set for Wednesday (April 10) — to be more interactive for attendees. The company is putting the kind of work it puts into its Comic-Con appearances for fans into its presentation to media buyers. 

“It’s still a very intimate event,“ Kelleher said. “We still have talent interspersed around the room.” Chief marketing officer Kim Granito’s group “created these really great immersive moments that will bring the shows to life for buyers who haven’t seen them yet,” she added. 

Even in an age where programmatic machines are making a growing share of the buying decisions, it’s important to get clients and agency executives familiar with the content AMC produces.

“Our most important products are our shows,“ Kelleher said. “That’s what brings the viewers that people want to buy.” 

As the market develops, Kelleher sees advertisers continuing to seek flexibility, choice and different ways of transacting.

“We’ve really tried to adapt our business in real time, no matter what the market does,” she said.

“We need volume,“ Kelleher added. “I’m very bullish that the economy is better. I’m very bullish that’s going to a bit more confidence in their spend.” 

But “the notion of having to put your dollars into the upfront to guarantee that inventory, to guarantee that pricing upwards of 18 months out, that’s not for everyone anymore,” she added.

“Obviously we appreciate the upfront and we super-serve the advertisers that participate, but we’re open 365 days a year,” Kelleher said. “We’ll meet our partners whenever they need to be.”

AMC Networks said it will be launching ad-supported versions of all of its targeted streaming services by next year.

AMC last year launched an ad-supported version of AMC Plus, its subscription streaming service.

Also Read: AMC Counts on Content, Ad Tech To Reverse Ad Slide (Upfront 2024)

“We’ve been very pleased with the performance of AMC Plus,” AMC Networks chief revenue officer Kim Kelleher said. Despite some distributors still being in the process of enabling the ad-supported version of AMC Plus, the company has gotten a good enough reception to move forward with adding commercials to its other subscription streamers, she said.

Also Read: 

AMC Plus gives viewers access to programming from AMC’s Shudder, Sundance Now and IFC Films Unlimited channels.

Subscribers who want Shudder (horror), Acorn TV (British telly), Hidive (anime), ALLBLK (African-American content), Sundance Now and IFC Films Unlimited on their own, will get the option of watching or not watching commercials. 

Pricing has not yet been released.

The move follows the trend of subscription streaming services that were once touted as commercial-free introducing lower-cost, ad-supported products.

“The successful launch of AMC Plus ad-supported was a major step in creating a fully end-to-end ad-supported distribution ecosystem across linear, streaming and CTV/FAST,” said Kelleher, 

“As we introduce ad-supported versions of all of our targeted streaming services, our ability to sell cross-platform segments and deliver outcomes to our advertising partners becomes even more effective,” she said. “These services have built leadership positions in their respective genres and we’re thrilled to give our commercial partners the power to access these audiences for the first time.”

Amid a stormy media environment that has many cable networks rethinking their future, Hallmark Channel is sticking with what has been a successful formula as the upfront market approaches.

“We rely on and lean into this brand and the fans that come with it,” Ed Georger, executive VP of ad sales and digital media for Hallmark Media, told Broadcasting+Cable.

Advertisers rely on the brand also, particularly in the fourth quarter, when Hallmark’s popular holiday programming kicks in.

In an election year, when campaigns will spend billions to reach voters in November, Hallmark will not accept political ads on any of its platforms, Georger said.

While many other cable networks are cutting back on their original, scripted programming, marketers can count on Hallmark delivering.

“Good quality storytelling still matters,” Georger said, noting that like last year, Hallmark plans to make about 100 movies — including 40 original Christmas films — and return three original scripted series, including When Calls the Heart, which is launching Season 11 over the weekend. 

“How many scripted series in television are on season 11?“ Georger asked. “That consistency delivering on the brand promise through emotional content, positive content, is what we stay true to. I think that also differentiates us in the marketplace.” 

In conversations with Hallmark, many clients have expressed concerns about the ability to find mass reach and scale, Georger said.

Hallmark has not been immune from cord-cutting and the shift to streaming. Total viewership was down 10% in 2023. Most other entertainment networks on cable saw bigger losses, and Hallmark finished the year as the No. 3 cable entertainment network, behind HGTV and TNT.

Hallmark was the top cable entertainment network among adults 25 to 54.

“There are still a few places that can draw consistently large audiences, and I would argue that’s sports, news and Hallmark,” Georger said.

Advertisers are also worried that as more transactions are automated and programmatic, brand safety suffers.

“Letting algorithms choose where your ads are going to run, you’re going to give up some of that brand security, so we position ourselves as an alternative to that,” he said.

Hallmark works with clients to dial up the contextual relevance of their ads, Georger said, particularly when it comes to putting seasonal ads in Hallmark’s seasonal programming.

“The relevant content makes our platform effective,” he said.

That’s not just at Christmas time. Home Depot is promoting its spring cleanup products in Hallmark’s current spring programming. Soon it will be barbecue season and summer vacation.

“I think those things help differentiate us in the marketplace and solve for some of the challenges that advertisers have as they lean into other methods of transacting, whether that’s programmatic or other automated processes,” Georger said.

Hallmark last year started working with EDO, which measures campaign results and found that commercials appearing during Hallmark movie premieres and new series episodes are 52% more likely to engage viewers than during the average Hallmark program.

Most of Georger’s attention goes to Hallmark Media’s main network, Hallmark Channel. Two other channels have recently been rebranded as Hallmark Mysteries and Hallmark Family. The company also has a subscription service and free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels.

Last year Hallmark hired Emily Powers from BritBox as executive VP of streaming and digital platforms. She’s working on a digital strategy that will future-proof the brand and keep it relevant.

Eyes on the KPIs

In this upfront season, Hallmark is sitting down in one-on-one meetings with clients, and listening to them, finding out what’s important to them and what KPIs (key performance indicators) they’re trying to deliver, Georger said.

Hallmark is not immune to the trend of media buyers and advertisers looking to shift cable ad dollars to streaming as consumers change their viewing habits.

“Certainly there are some pressures on the industry,” Georger said. “While there are a lot of options out there, there is something to be said about transparency and reliability.”

That includes working with a familiar ad-sales team. Georger has been with Hallmark for 25 years and most of his senior sales management team have also been there for a long time.

“It’s a nimble group,“ he said. ”Doing upfront or any business with Hallmark is pretty narrowly defined versus what you might have to navigate in dealing with one of these larger media companies. There’s something to be said for that, too.”

Hallmark is capping that off by inviting clients to a series of high-end experiences, such as classes, cocktails and dinners.

“That’s just a way for us to build relationships and connect with our clients,“ Georger said. “But it also makes the point that experiencing this brand is what our viewers do.”

A number of top streaming companies will present at this year’s NewFronts, which will be put on by the Interactive Advertising Bureau from April 29 to May 2.

Roku, Samsung, Vizio, TikTok, Meta and Vevo will be among the returning presenters.

Google’s YouTube will make a presentation and host a reception, but YouTube’s main Brandcast presentation will be made during the week of May 13, when most of the media companies that own broadcast networks will address media buyers and advertisers.

From 2023: Economy, Streaming Measurement Make This Year’s Upfront Unique

“The 2024 IAB NewFronts gives buyers a unique view of the video marketplace over the course of just a few days,” IAB CEO David Cohen said. “It’s a blend of content, technology, data and ad innovation which is why NewFronts is where the future of ad-supported streaming is defined.” 

The IAB will again have its Main Stage event on Wednesday, May 1, when a group of companies will make quick back-to-back presentations. Main Stage will be hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro, star of America’s Funniest Home Videos.

IAB is also working with National CineMedia, the U.S. Representative for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and the official Young Lions Jury networking partner. NCM and Young Lions jurors from State Farm Insurance, Verizon Communications and creative agency Omelet will share insights on creativity in premium video during a main stage presentation called “The Future of Brand Storytelling and the Next Generation of Young Creatives.” The event will culminate with the IAB NewFronts and NCM Young Lions Jury Networking Party.

Nielsen said it plans to make its combination of panel data plus big-data measurement systems available to use as its preferred currency effective in September, when upfront deals cut this spring take effect.

Nielsen is incorporating big data from Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku, Vizio and Comcast into its new measurement systems. Nielsen is also taking to streamers to incorporate their data into its service.

The big data — from 45 million households and 75 million devices — gets combined with the 40,000 households participating in Nielsen’s panel to create the new ratings. Nielsen uses the panel as a “truth set” that enables it to create person-level data and iron out errors, biases and other imperfections in the big data sets it works with.

At a time when viewing is more fragmented than ever, using big data makes Nielsen’s audience estimates more stable and sensitive, with fewer incidents of programs or demographic groups showing up with no viewers in the sample — the so-called zero cells, Deirdre Thomas, Nielsen’s chief product officer, said on a conference call with reporters.

“You really need a big data set to understand because there are all the different types of media platforms and devices that we all roam around on,” Thomas said. “But bit data alone cannot get it done. You need a truth set.”

Nielsen also said that using big data increases viewing levels by 4% to 5%, added Pete Doe, Nielsen’s chief research officer. Viewing levels increase more for younger viewers than older ones.

Ratings for most shows are up slightly or flat, Doe said.

Nielsen has dominated the TV ratings business for decades, but throughout that time had been subject to criticism when its numbers haven’t measured up. During the pandemic, Nielsen lost the Media Rating Council’s accreditation for its national and local measurement processes.

Nielsen regained its national accreditation last year, but only for its panel-based data. Its plan to add big data has yet to be accredited by the MRC.

The measurement world has also become more competitive with companies looking to use big data to improve audience estimates.

Last month, Comscore received household-level accreditation from the MRC for its national and local measurement system. 

Nielsen is also facing competition from iSpot.tv and VideoAmp. 

Comscore, iSpot.TV and Videoamp all received provisional certification from the Joint Industry Council on Measurement for their use of big data to produce audience estimates. (Nielsen declined to participate in the JIC process.)

Getting MRC accreditation has historically been a big deal for media buyers and advertisers, but Nielsen appears ready to go forward with its big data even before the MRC has finished its review.

But this upfront, big-data currencies will be used for transactions.

“Big data from any one of four measurement companies (Nielsen, VideoAmp, iSpot, & Comscore) is a given as an upfront currency option,” said Sean Cunningham, CEO of the Video Advertising Bureau, which has been monitoring the measurement and currency situation closely on behalf of its membership of programmers and distributors who sell advertising.

“Three of the above (VideoAmp, iSpot & Comscore) have been through a rigorous JIC data testing process to good result, and Nielsen national data is at the tail end of an MRC audit process, there are also some who may want to trade on Nielsen panel; there are definitely choices,” Cunningham said. 

Nielsen’s big data will enable it to help plan and measure advanced audiences. Nielsen can link data that brands have about their customers to identify target consumers and create cross-platform measurement as well, Thomas said.

The new system will also better enable Nielsen to measure addressable advertising. 

Thomas noted that as part of the process of launching big data as part of its currency, Nielsen has been providing clients with impact data since the end of last year to gauge how the new measurement performs. Nielsen will continue to use C3 and C7 as metrics and continue to provide panel-only data to clients who prefer to use it.

Sony Pictures Television Advertiser Sales said it would be pushing its digital broadcast network Great Entertainment Television (GET) during its upfront discussions.

GET shows vintage programming such as Good Times and Sanford & Son. Sony recently subscribed to Nielsen ratings for the network, and viewership has grown 13% in total day among viewers 2-plus year over year, Sony said.

Sony will also be talking about its Game Show Network as well as its long-running syndicated game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.

Game Show Network has green-lit three new strip series, including Beat the Bridge, based on the popular U.K. format from STV Studios, to be hosted by Cameron Mathison of General Hospital and Home & Family; and a revival of Tic Tac Dough hosted by Brooke Burns of The Chase.

Both shows are scheduled to air this summer.

The recently announced Flip Side, hosted by Jaleel White, will premiere in syndication and appear on Game Show Network This fall.

“In keeping with Game Show Network’s strategy, we continue to produce originals to keep our pipeline fresh, which resonates with our viewers,” Stuart Zimmerman, executive VP, ad sales, Sony Pictures Advertiser Sales, said. “As the overall marketplace faces headwinds, Game Show Network has weathered the storm better than most of its counterparts in both viewership and distribution. Our audience is highly engaged with our programs and our clients’ commercials are viewed in a trusted environment.“

In addition to Jeopardy! and Wheel, Sony distributes the syndicated shows S.W.A.T, Seinfeld and The Goldbergs.

VideoAmp plans to supplement its pitch about how its data is being adopted as currency with testimonials from buyers, sellers and advertisers about how using advanced metrics has made their campaigns more effective.

One of the companies challenging Nielsen’s dominance in TV ratings, VideoAmp is holding a VampFront event Tuesday ahead of the upfronts–an unusual move for a measurement company.

“We play such a large role in the upfront,” Peter Bradbury, VideoAmp’s chief commercial officer, told Broadcasting+Cable.

“We’ve never gotten all of the interested parties together and shared where we’re at, how we can enable them and share successes,” he said. “We at VideoAmp are very very aggressively trying to make the case to the industry empirically that there's a better way to transact.”

Bradbury, who spent more than two decades with Nielsen before joining VideoAmp in January, said the company is inviting high-level executives from the buy side, the sell side and industry groups to its event.

After VideoAmp execs lay out their vision of where the industry is heading, “we’re very quickly handing it off to our clients,” Bradbury said. “We’re very fortunate that we had a large group of clients jump at the opportunity to stand up and share their message about the progress they’ve made in their own shops in large part through the work they’ve been doing with us evolving their measurement and currency.”

A big part of VideoAmp’s message is that better measurement and advanced currencies aren’t part of the future, but a reality today.

“There are a lot of deals that are being done, north of a billion dollars in deals have been conducted on VideoAmp alone, not to mention the other more targeted currencies,” Bradbury said.

Other data points VideoAmp will present includes the assertion it is on track to have more than $1 billion in deal guaranteed by VideoAmp currency in 2024.

The company said it has 1,400% year-over-year growth in adoption for its measurement and currency solutions, and that it is doing business with 98% of publishers, 11 agency groups and more than 1,000 advertisers.

Campaigns guaranteed on advanced audiences with VideoAmp have generated an 11% increase in total conversions, based on VideoAmp Outcome Reports commissioned by Paramount for 13 Vantage data driven linear campaigns guaranteed on VideoAmp currencies in 2022 and 2023.

Guest speakers appearing in person at the VampFront are expected to include Katie Haniffy, head of media for PepsiCo Beverages, Fox Chief Advertising Research and Analytics Officer Mainak Mazumdar (another former Nielsen exec), and Maureen Bossetti, chief investment officer at IPG’s MediaBrands. 

Speaking on tape will be clients from companies including Luxottica, OMG, Dentsu, Horizon Media, Paramount Advertising, Warner Bros. Discovery, TelevisaUnivision, NBCUniversal and Allen Media Group.

“I've been in the business almost 30 years and I can tell you when clients want to say nice things about you to other clients, it's a privileged position,” said Bradbury.

The event will primarily be a business meeting, though there will be some time for socializing afterwards.

“We're going to be low on shrimp, big on information and insights,” he said, countering VideoAmp's reputation for lavishly entertaining clients.

VideoAmp’s meeting comes a week after the American Association of Advertising Agencies put out a report questioning whether alternative currencies were “ready for prime time.”

Bradbury said that the study was already out of date, because it used data from 2022.

“I got calls from maybe 15 clients on both buy and sell side all with very similar messages,” he said. 

“The takeaway was: ‘hey, you know what people. we’re actually smart enough to chew gum and walk at the same time,’” Bradbury said. 

“And this idea that we should again delay using information that helps us to be more efficient and drive more profitability for our clients and ourselves, it's just crazy. It's antiquated and it clearly is clinging to some historical way of doing business,” he added. “I'm sure that their heart was in the right place. I'm sure they felt like they were being helpful to someone.”

Earlier this year VideoAmp restructured its management, bringing in Bradbury, and cutting headcount by 20%.

The company had hired people for some new businesses, that either didn’t work or weren’t core to what VideoAmp was doing. Now the company is “all systems go and focused on the future,” Bradbury said. “Our clients are asking us to do more. In fact they're kind of aggressively asking us to do more in a lot of areas.”

VideoAmp has been criticized for having an activation business, because some believe one company shouldn’t both be playing the game by buying media and keeping score by measuring reach and results.

Bradbury said VideoAmp will be focusing on currency measures.

“The industry has told us that’s where we can bring the most value,” he said. “That said, we do have clients to count on us for activation and we're committed to at some point a peaceful transition of power.” Until then, VideoAmp will continue to take care of its activation clients.

Nielsen bashing is a favorite hobby of people in the TV business. Will Bradbury be dunking on his old employer?

“No. Zero from us for sure, he said.  “Our North Star is buy side and the sell side of the industry and what helps them drive their business.  We have respect for folks who came before us and we will have respect for folks who come after us.”

Opening up this year’s upfront season, A+E Networks is telling advertisers that it will continue to put out original content created by high-profile talent and that it has developed a new measurement system to assure brands their campaigns will get results.

In a quick 30-minute virtual presentation, A+E said that as many media companies are cutting back on content to reduce costs, it will be producing 2,500 hours of new multiplatform content, about the same as last year.

This year’s A+E talent roster includes Tom Hanks, Derek Jeter, Dan Aykroyd, Reese Witherspoon, Danny Trejoy, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, Mary J. Blige, Toni Braxton, Don Cheadle, Alice Cooper, Kevin Costner, Bethenny Frankel, Gloria Gaynor, Sammy Hagar, Delilah Hamlin, Melissa Joan Hart, Michael Imperioli, Janet Jackson, Chloe Lukasiak, Peyton Manning, Terry McMillan, Bret Michaels, President Barack Obama, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Rachael Ray, Lisa Rinna, Robin Roberts, Elisabeth Röhm, JoJo Siwa, Savannah Lee Smith, Dee Snider, Buddy Valastro, Kendall Vertes, Brian White, Reese Witherspoon and Billy Zane.

“A+E continues to move forward with intention and pace in the ever-evolving media landscape, bringing forth premium quality content for viewers and innovative solutions for advertising partners,” A+E president and chairman Paul Buccieri said.

“Behind the scenes, we partner with the best talent in the business — in front of and behind the camera — resulting in a diverse roster that resonates emotionally with all audiences everywhere,” Buccieri said. “We are creators of content that inspires, captivates, delights and informs, and it is the power of imagination and storytelling that binds us all, no matter how or where we choose to watch.”

A+E is putting original content on cable, where fresh programming is increasingly rare. It is also offsetting the loss of reach due to cord-cutting by distributing its programming on streaming platforms.

“This whole approach of pushing our content out into all the windows is to build back as much reach as possible,” A+E president of ad sales Peter Olsen told Broadcasting+Cable about the company’s multi-platform approach. 

“We’re still reaching two-thirds of the country,“ Olsen said. ”We know television works. We’ve known that for five decades. This multiplatform approach gives us so much confidence that its going to work because it always worked and it still does.” 

A+E isn’t the biggest programmer, so it has to be more nimble and willing to do things to help advertisers others aren’t willing to do, said former Fox ad sales president Toby Byrne, who joined A+E as executive VP in January.  

“We made different decisions about how we’re going to distribute our content, as opposed to our own streamer,” Byrne said.  “That’s helped us build reach. It’s helped us build our digital audience. Our product now is our total audience.”

Byrne said A+E is making a case to be looked at differently by ad buyers than other traditional cable programmers.

“We want to be the partner that they choose to work with because we do so many things so well,” he said.

A+E is looking to assure advertisers that multiplatform campaigns will work with a new metric it calls InterAction. 

“We’ve realized that to compete in this marketplace, we need additional ways to prove our value,” Olsen said.

InterAction uses three key metrics: attention data from TVision, recall measurement from Brand Effect and search results from EDO.

 “We know how complex the marketplace is and we wanted to get beyond counting impressions,” said Rosanne Montenes, senior VP of ad sales-audience solutions. “It’s really shorthand for how A+E takes consumers further down that purchase journey from actually seeing an ad to then taking an action.”

InterAction is used to plan a campaign on the front end, while A+E’s Performax tool is used to execute it and guarantee it will work.

A+E has been offering clients guarantees campaigns will perform for a few years. 

The TV advertising market was weak last year and on earnings calls this quarter media company executive have said the see signs demand is improving.

“We feel cautiously optimistic about the market,” said Olsen. 

“As a company and a sales force, we are upbeat, optimistic and energized. There's a lot of challenges but there's no reason to wallow in all the problems. We just focus on what we can do, how we can solve problems and go out and do it,” he said.

“I think clients are recognizing once again the value of a full-funnel approach. We are seeing more activity in traditional scatter,” Olsen added. “I think the desire to work with publishers versus aggregators is a legitimate debate that’s happening because of all the things we bring to the table.”

Olsen said that A+E has been pleased with its early, on-video upfront presentation strategy.

“We always say we’ll do it in 30 minutes or less,“ he said. “That’s a big promise we make to people.

“We love going early because it gives us top-of-mind awareness during what we think of as the most important six week of actual dealmaking,” Olsen said, adding that A+E is also making personalized visits to media buyers and marketers.

With a video presentation, “we reach 3,000 plus people in the first month, more than we could host at the Armory like the old days, and we can do it in a more cost-efficient, effective manner,” he said. “And we get home for dinner instead of being out spending all of our T&E money.”

A+E’S UPFRONT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Here are some of the programs A+E Networks will be announcing during its upfront presentation:

History Channel

• Tom Hanks World War II Documentary Series (Untitled): Hosted and narrated by Tom Hanks, the new 20-part untitled documentary series offers a comprehensive view of World War II.
• Reconstruction Podcast With President Barack Obama (Untitled): Produced by President Obama and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Audio, Malcolm Gladwell’s Pushkin Industries and Audible, the eight-part untitled podcast explores the history and legacy of America’s Reconstruction Era.
• History’s Greatest Warriors: Produced by Derek Jeter’s production company CAP 2 Productions and Citizen Jones, the new series explores the step-by-step process to produce some of history’s most infamous and lethal warriors — Samurai, Spartans, Delta Force, Navy SEALS and Vikings. 
• The Icons that Built America: Produced by Jeter’s CAP 2 Productions and Blackfin, a division of Lionsgate’s Alternative Television group, the series celebrates the innovators, trailblazers, and risk-takers who pushed boundaries and redefined what it means to be a performer. The seven-episode series explores the lives and careers of such individuals as daredevil Evel Knievel, martial artist and actor Bruce Lee, comedian Richard Pryor, radio host Howard Stern and hip-hop group N.W.A.
• The UnXplored with Danny Trejo (working title): Shedding a light on the mysteries of the past and present, the new series examines the fascinating stories surrounding buried artifacts and lost civilizations. Hosted and narrated by Trejo, the eight-part series seeks to unearth what the human eye cannot easily detect.
• History 250: The History Channel is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States with History 250, an initiative highlighting long-form content on-air, multiplatform short-form content and premium events reflecting the power and legacy of American history and stories. This initiative will run across all platforms and highlight many lives and experiences from 250 voices across 50 states to honor, acknowledge and reflect different perspectives from our past and present.

Lifetime

• Gloria Gaynor Biopic/Robin Roberts Presents: Two-time Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter and music legend Gloria Gaynor is set to have her extraordinary journey brought to life in a new Lifetime biopic which marks the network’s third film project with journalist Robin Roberts under her “Robin Roberts Presents” banner.
• Dance Moms: The Reunion: The two-hour special event — produced by the A+E Factual Studios Group — is set to premiere in May featuring Dance Moms fan favorites JoJo Siwa, Chloe Lukasiak, Brooke Hyland, Paige Hyland, Kendall Vertes and Kalani Hilliker looking back at the show that became a worldwide pop-culture sensation.
• Untitled Larry Ray/Sarah Lawrence Cult Movie: Executive produced and directed by Elisabeth Röhm, Billy Zane will star in the yet-to-be-titled movie based on the true story of Larry Ray, an ex-con who moved in with his daughter at Sarah Lawrence College and created a cult-like influence over her friends.

A&E Network

• Secrets of the Hells Angels: Under former leader Sonny Barger, the Hells Angels expanded across the United States. The series examines the history of the group of outlaws to uncover the organization’s darkest secrets.
• Houses of Horror: Secrets of College Greek Life: The series exposes the dark side of fraternities and sororities and its impact on some of the young men and women who participate.

Home.Made.Nation

• Hello Sunshine Development Deal: Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine will develop premium lifestyle content for A+E’s Home.Made.Nation multiplatform content hub. The first series to launch is Country House Hunters, which will follow couples as they search for the perfect country home.
• Property Virgins: Hosted by celebrated radio and TV personality and one of Toronto’s top realtors, Wendy Wolfe, this update of the classic series portrays the experiences of first-time home buyers looking for their dream homes.
• 24 Hours To Buy: Series profiles couples who are in a housing pressure cooker - whether they're relocating unexpectedly for work, or compelled by a personal situation, their relocation is coming up and they need to find a house fast.

With more ad sales being done programmatically, FreeWheel, Comcast’s ad-tech company has introduced a new product designed to enable media companies manage inventory across sales channels.

FreeWheel’s Allocation Module will be available before the 2024 upfront. It is designed to give publishers a holistic view of spending against upfront commitments regardless of transaction type, enabling them to optimize the monetization of their inventory. That includes biddable programmatic deals..

It also lets users of demand side platforms know whether or not they are bidding enough in real time to meet the ad spending commitments their clients’ made during the upfront.

Media companies AMC Networks, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery have signed on as initial development partners and will test the Allocation Module ahead of the upfront.

“Existing systems have been holding back the modern day upfront. There has been an inherent conflict between the concept of upfront commitments and programmatic bidding, which happens in real time,” said David Dworin, chief product officer at FreeWheel. “This new solution bridges that gap and has the potential to turbocharge the shift to programmatic as part of the next upfront.”

FreeWheel is using its Beeswax buy-side programmatic platform to get the Allocation Module up and running in time for the upfronts.

“Programmatic trading plays an important role in our advertising partners’ TV strategies, particularly as viewers are spending more time with streaming content and platforms,” said Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. ad sales officer at Warner Bros. Discovery.

“We need to make sure that no matter how our inventory is purchased, it is managed in a holistic manner that extracts the most value for the advertiser and provides the best experience for viewers. We look forward to working with FreeWheel to take holistic inventory management to the next level in time for this year’s TV upfronts rollout,” Steinlauf said.

“As a content company that shifted years ago to a programmatic-first approach to buying across our digital inventory, and now our linear networks as well, a solution like this will allow us to better manage upfront deals and offer more flexibility and cross-platform reach to our clients,” added Evan Adlman, executive VP of commercial sales and revenue operations, AMC Networks.

“Since so much viewership is now on connected devices within streaming platforms, programmatic buying has never been more important,” Adlman said. “FreeWheel has been a great partner in driving technological advances in our industry, and Allocation Module will now make it easier for advertisers to reach audiences programmatically across all environments, at scale.”

TelevisaUnivision said it plans a full day of upfront events on May 14.

The Spanish-language TV giant will hold its upfront at HK Hall on the West Side of Manhattan. The space will be transformed into Casa Cultura, a venue that will give advertisers and media buying a chance to be immersed into Latino culture.

The day will start with a presentation by Donna Speciale, president of U.S. advertising sales and marketing at TelevisaUnivision. Speciale will spell out the company’s go-to-market strategy and describe new solutions and platforms to help marketers reach the growing audience of Hispanic consumers.

In the evening, TelevisaUnivision will present a concert highlighting the company’s music platform Uforia. Performers will be announced closer to the event, the company said.

“It's time to embrace the new mainstream,“ Speciale said. “If 2023 was the year Latinos dominated American culture, 2024 is the year la cultura dominates our industry. And without question, la cultura lives here at TelevisaUnivision.”

“Inside our casa, we will bring to life the heart and passion of the massive community we exclusively serve; we will showcase Latinos’ influence on culture and commerce; and we will debut an enhanced portfolio of content, creator and audience capabilities for brands to truly unite with what is undoubtedly their most significant consumer segment,” she said.

In last year’s upfront TelevisaUnivision outpaced its English-language counterparts by achieving higher prices and higher volume. The company said it has a record number of advertisers participating in its upfront and finished 2023 with a record number of new clients.

Hallmark Media said it plans to reprise last year’s upfront strategy of creating a variety of “experiences” for media buyers and advertisers.

The experiences will take place from April 2 to April 11 and take place at locations including a private tour and cocktail party at one of New York’s most iconic venues, entertaining classes and a dinner at a Michelin-rated restaurant.

During the experiences, Hallmark will provide buyers and clients with a look at Hallmark content and viewership insights.

“The positive response we received from our Upfront Experiences last year affirmed the effectiveness of this approach. It allows  us to personally engage our advertisers and agency partners with activities that resonate with the core values and essence of the Hallmark brand” said Ed Georger, executive VP, ad sales & digital media. “As part of these experiences, we look forward to sharing the new tools and initiatives Hallmark Media has to offer that will empower brands to authentically connect with our expanding viewership.”  

Hallmark Channel was the most watched entertainment cable network among women age 25 to 54 during 2023.

 Fox said that it will hold an upfront event for advertisers and media buyers on Monday May 13.

Fox will be returning to the Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center for the presentation.

Jeff Collins, the new Fox president of advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships will be the host of the event, which will highlight the company’s sports, entertainment, news and streaming properties.

The company said it will unveil new content and new data- and tech-enhanced ad capabilities.

“At Fox, our unrivaled, world-class content connects with communities nationwide like no other,” said Collins. “We are excited to return to upfront week, the culmination of months of bespoke client engagements focused on developing custom solutions for our valued partners across our industry-leading content, data and technology.”

Leading up to its upfront event, Fox has been holding small, customized client meetings featuring company executives and network talent. It has also been conducting a data and technology roadshow where it is introducing a cross-platform planning and measurement tool. 

Most other TV companies have unveiled their upfront plans. Many are reprising what they did last year, with sizable events in well-known venues.

A few, led by Paramount Global, are holding smaller, private meetings with advertisers.