2023 upfronts

NBCUniversal said it has completed its upfront sales, saying the dollar volume of ad commitments were “roughly in line” with last year’s upfront, which was in the $7 billion range across broadcast, cable and digital. With falling ratings, a strike by writers and actors and economic jitters, this year’s upfront has been a buyers’ market, with prices dropping for traditional commercials especially in primetime. The main exception is sports where demand remained relatively strong. Pictured: NBCU interim sales chief Mark Marshall at NBCU’s upfront presentation in May.

The drama roiling the industry was evident in all the Writers Guild of America picket signs that swarmed around the major events held from May 15 to May 17. That added to the general madness of the week that is a television and advertising industry tradition but is starting to feel anachronistic in the streaming era. But the upfronts are still a hard habit to break.

For decades, the week in May when television executives revealed what new shows were coming and which old ones were going spoke to the power and influence that ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox had over popular culture. This past week offered more evidence of how that is diminishing, draped in confusion about the future wrought by the Hollywood writers strike.

If TV’s upfront week used to be defined by spectacle — a parade of stars and musical performances culminating in glamorous parties with open bars and lobster canapés — to say the 2023 installment was muted would be an understatement. There were still musical performances, and there were stars (at least from the world of sports, news and reality TV), but the ongoing writers strike made its presence felt.

“The CW is now run by broadcasters whose only goal is to build a strong brand and cultivate emotional attachment to the largest audience possible,” Entertainment President Brad Schwartz told reporters Thursday. “Our goal is to do what’s best for viewers, for stations and for advertisers. No longer will The CW be built for the benefit of two content studios.”

YouTube, competing for TV ad dollars with TV companies that are shifting to streaming, announced that it is bringing 30-second commercials that can’t be skipped to YouTube Select on connected TVs. At its annual Brandcast presentation to advertisers during upfront week, YouTube also said it was introducing the ability to pause ads to CTVs.

At its first upfront presentation, Netflix shared some hard numbers with advertisers, saying it now has nearly 5 million global monthly active users for its ad-supported tier. The median age for those users is 34, the streamer said, considerably lower than the senior citizen-level average for most broadcast and cable channels. After years of forswearing commercials, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters told advertisers and media buyers: “We share a common goal, which is building connection. You want to connect consumers with your amazing brands. And we want to connect them with amazing entertainment they’ll love.” Pictured: Jeremi Gorman, Netflix president, worldwide advertising.

TelevisaUnivision, the Spanish-language media giant, says it has partnered with the NFL and CBS Sports to secure the Spanish-language rights to the next Super Bowl, which is set for Feb. 11, 2024, in Las Vegas. TelevisaUnivision announced the news at its upfront presentation Tuesday in New York with sports anchor Alejandro Berry teasing “four major and very exciting announcements,” before introducing star athletes to bring out trophies for the UEFA Champions League, the EuroCup, and the Copa America.

Fox made its annual upfront pitch to advertisers at the Manhattan Center on Monday afternoon, pushing the messages of Fox Entertainment, Tubi, Fox News and Fox Sports, all while promising the audience that don’t worry, we’ll get you hammered soon. Coming off of presentations hampered by the pandemic in recent years, Fox was back in nearly full force, with the writers’ strike limiting the number of network stars in attendance. The event also featured some football antics courtesy of Rob Gronkowski and some well-placed cursing by Gordon Ramsay.

Get ready for a different kind of upfront. Sure, the foggy economy and the Writers Guild of America strike will affect the willingness of the buyers to engage and exactly what the network will put on their schedule. But while the economy is likely to be cyclical, turning up at some point, and while the strike by the WGA will eventually be settled — returning fresh scripted shows to network schedules that already count reality and competition series like The Masked Singer and The Voice among their top performers — deeper changes are taking place in the TV advertising business.

The impact of the Hollywood writers strike was felt as major television networks began their annual week of sales presentations to advertisers on Monday, with news personalities like Willie Geist and Stephanie Ruhle left to hawk comedies and dramas for NBCUniversal.

Dozens of protesters greeted marketers as they entered the first major event of the upfronts, an annual showcase for advertisers in which media companies stage lavish gatherings to promote their lineups.

Media companies, including NBCUniversal, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, will make their annual pitches to advertisers during their Upfront presentations this week. This year’s events come in the midst of a soft advertising market and the Hollywood writers’ strike, as well as accelerated cost-cutting by media companies. Advertisers will likely increase spending on ad-supported and so-called FAST options this year as cord-cutting accelerates. Franchise-related content will continue to take a big role.

CNN last Wednesday broadcast one of the most controversial news events of the year, a runaway town hall interview with former President Donald Trump, and advertisers like Subaru and Fidelity Investments went along for the ride. There are new questions about whether all of Madison Avenue will do so in the future.

With an upfront presentation and the upfront market a week away, Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. Ad Sales has added new measurement partners. The list includes 605, ABCS Insights, DISQO, EDO, LoopMe and Pilotly —  to add “greater attribution and efficacy of advertising campaigns” to work on cross-platform and advanced audience deals.

Netflix at the last minute canceled its first live upfront presentation after striking writers said they planned to disrupt the event. The streaming service notified attendees Wednesday night that the presentation would be made virtually instead of at the Paris Theater, which has been run by Netflix since 2019. The company did not give a reason for the shift, although published reports indicated that  that the New York Police Department expressed concerns about pedestrian safety in the vicinity of the event.

Buyers and sellers are still playing with alternative currencies such as VideoAmp, iSpot are Comscore, but nothing will take the place of C3/C7 ratings in a majority of this year’s upfront sales. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

The CW has given a 13-episode Season 4 order to  Walker, starring Jared Padalecki, to air in 2023-24 broadcast season. This is the first renewal decision made by the CW under its new regime, flagship All American’s renewal, announced in January, was part of Nexstar’s deal to acquire the CW. Walker had been considered the frontrunner among the CW’s scripted series to snag a renewal. It is a strong ratings performer, ranking as the network’s most-watched linear show this season in total viewers.

“We’re not going back to the old way of doing things,” says ad sales head John Halley.

Following back-to-back salvos from Nielsen and Comscore earlier in the day, the fledgling U.S. “JIC” opened its upfront-style event Thursday afternoon on an escalatory note, with one opening panelists describing their moves in explicitly war-like terms.

On the eve of television’s upfront advertising market, Nielsen released a statement to clients urging them to use its legacy panels-only measurement system as currency, but said it will make its big-data plus panels measurement available for clients who want to use that to transact.

Executives and on-air talent from Allen Media Group showcased an expanding and increasingly multimedia programming lineup for brand marketers and media buyers during an upfront presentation in New York that highlighted the company’s investment in new shows and in expanded reach on linear TV and digital platforms. (Photo by Chance Yeh/Getty Images for Allen Media Group/The Weather Channel)

Looking to address the demand for growing cross-media platform measurement needs for this upfront selling period, a media-focused joint industry committee (JIC) of TV network-based media sellers — and now media agency holding companies  — will be holding an “upfront-style” event on April 27, at Aspire at One World Observatory in New York City.

Despite a weak scatter market and concerns about a pending recession, most marketing and agency executives expect to spend as much or more in the upcoming upfront market than they did a year ago, according to a survey by iSpot.tv. iSpot found that 78% of those surveyed expected overall marketing budgets to increase or remain the same. And when it comes to TV, 74% said they saw themselves spending much more, a bit more or the same as during last year’s upfronts.

In lieu of a formal presentation, the company said Monday that it will unveil its fall programming lineup in its usual Thursday morning timeslot on May 18. Rather than a large-scale event, the network will host a press breakfast at Park Lane Hotel in New York City, followed by a press conference with Dennis Miller, president of The CW Network, and Brad Schwartz, president of entertainment at The CW Network.

Warner Bros. Discovery says it will partner with Comscore and VideoAmp for “alternative currencies” when it comes to making deals with national advertisers across its linear TV and advanced advertising inventory for this year’s upfront ad market.

Nexstar Media has spent months assembling a massive roster of TV stations; acquiring TV’s CW network; and building the NewsNation cable news network. Now comes the hard part: Getting Madison Avenue to buy ads across all of it. The nation’s largest owner of local TV outlets is ready to make its pitch to advertisers and has already scheduled a presentation for media buyers in New York for April 25. The goal, says Michael Strober, the company’s chief revenue officer, is to showcase the company’s reach among both national and local media. “We can bring local and national to our clients in ways that have never been replicated across the country,” he says.

Fewer TV advertising dollars are expected to be spent in upfront deal-making in this year versus a year ago, according to a new survey from Advertiser Perceptions. Just 49% of more than 300 U.S. marketers and agency executives in a February survey said they would be making upfront deals — down from 56% a year ago — when asked the question: “What percent of your total video advertising budget — linear TV, CTV/streaming TV and digital video — for this year will be allocated during the 2023 upfront negotiation period, and what percent will be reserved for the scatter market?”

In an advertising market update released this morning, media auditing firm Cortex Media projects the 2023 advertising marketplace likely will experience a “slowcession,” a term it made up characterizing the economy as “coming to a standstill, but never going in reverse.” In terms of media-buying implications, it is projecting the 2023-24 upfront advertising marketplace will be most impacted, declining 7% to 8% over 2022-23 volume.

TelevisaUnivision said it is moving its upfront event to a bigger venue in 2023 based on a big turnout last year. “We’ve reached the tipping point. The cultural firepower of U.S. Hispanics is indisputable, and more brands than ever are making the commitment to invest in this audience,” said Donna Speciale, TelevisaUnivision president of U.S., advertising sales and marketing.

Disney Advertising said it plans to hold a big event to close out its upfront process at New York’s Javits Center on the Tuesday of upfront week, May 16. Last year, Disney held an upfront event downtown at Basketball City on PIer 36. Disney says the event will show off its array of entertainment and sports programming. It also said ABC latenight star Jimmy Kimmel is expected to return to New York to roast network executives and media buyers.

For a second straight year, YouTube will host its annual Brandcast pitch to video ad buyers during the heart of what had been a week dominated by traditional TV network upfronts in New York. The digital video giant, which had been an anchor tenant of the more digitally focused NewFronts ad showcase held earlier in the spring, made its mid-May debut last year with a show in the Broadway theater district. This year, on May 17, Brandcast is heading uptown to Lincoln Center’s recently renovated David Geffen Hall. The evening show will be followed by an after-party, YouTube said in a blog post.

To upfront or not upfront, that is the question. AMC Networks will choose the former, holding an in-person event with between 200 to 250 attendees at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Tuesday, April 18. The company opts for the approach after at least one of the nation’s biggest media companies has opted to abandon the concept, and a sector upstart has unveiled an effort to take its place.

The newest entrant to TV’s Upfront Week has little to do with traditional TV. Just as companies like Walt Disney, NBCUniversal and Fox try to tempt Madison Avenue with previews of new programming in hopes of wooing billions in ad cash, so too will Netflix. The streaming giant plans to hold its own upfront presentation in New York’s Paris Theater — which it owns — on May 17, smack dab in the middle of a stretch of days during which TV’s biggest players make pitches of their own.