upfronts 2017

NBCUniversal is launching a TV business upfront campaign through its own networks — with a series of TV commercials — for the first time. “For this year’s upfront messaging, we’e going beyond the traditional trade media buy and taking advantage of our own assets,” stated Linda Yaccarino, NBCU chairman of advertising sales.

For two weeks, digital juggernaut Google has been on the defensive over its placement of ads alongside objectionable content, including videos promoting terrorism, racism and anti-Semitism. The imbroglio, which has spurred big brands like Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola to withhold ad dollars from Google, is giving TV networks ammunition as they prepare to pitch their upcoming programming in the annual Madison Avenue bonanza known as the “upfront” marketplace.

Donald Trump’s presidency may be seeping into every other part of media, but it’s not expected to meaningfully impact TV upfront negotiations.

For all the talk about how data’s role in the TV upfronts will continue to be more pronounced, two cable networks, Scripps and A&E, reminded media buyers and advertisers that TV is more than just buying audiences.

With linear-TV viewing vying with a broad array of new video screens, the media companies that fight each year for billions of dollars in ad cash have trotted out new ideas they hope will catch the skeptical eye of Madison Avenue.

Magna Global, the large media-investment unit of Interpublic Group, is working on what David Cohen, the company’s president of North America operations, calls “an aggressive kind of television alternative package” in time for the “upfront,” the annual market during which U.S. TV companies try to sell the bulk of their ad inventory.