Which media companies will win the TV upfront, according to buyers

Heading into this year’s TV upfronts, advertisers are being especially judicious about the partners they choose to invest with as media buyers anticipate a flat or down market. With many predicting this year’s upfront market will reflect the softness of last year’s, five media buyers ranked which companies are commanding the most client demand ahead of the annual festivities, including which stand to lose the most if they fail to differentiate themselves during the crowded week. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs “Someone’s going to get hurt in this upfront, and a lot of it depends on how they approach us,” said one media buyer, adding that agencies and clients will have eagle eyes on typical negotiation items such as pricing and terms as well as added value such as cutting fees for data capabilities and programmatic buying. “There’s so many options splitting up the pie [of client upfront budgets], so a lot depends on how they approach us.” A second buyer said that as advertisers’ budgets remain tight, clients are looking to commit upfront investments to the media companies that can place ad dollars across the largest portfolios and audiences. The remainder of budgets will be reserved for spending throughout the year in the scatter market, particularly as the rise of programmatic and audience-based buying have made inventory outside of sports and tentpole sponsorships more readily available. “If you made a chart of upfront companies, it used to be all of these media companies and networks, and it’s whittled down over the years to these few big conglomerates,” said the second buyer. Of the media companies presenting during the TV upfront week—NBCUniversal, Fox, Amazon Prime Video, TelevisaUnivision, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix and YouTube—media buyers break down which are commanding the most client interest and which have the most to prove. Get upfront updates sent directly to your inbox here Disney Multiple buyers consider Disney and NBCUniversal to be neck-and-neck in competition for the most in-demand of the legacy TV companies. The second buyer said that the two companies “have gobbled up more and more of upfront budgets” as they’ve grown their assets, making themselves must-haves for clients, because, at the very least, of how deep their partnerships run. While many question why media companies continue to throw lavish events each year despite pushes for automated buying and investment transitioning away from program-specific inventory, the second buyer said Disney and NBCUniversal have proven the value of flying clients to New York annually. The buyer said the two companies have done the best jobs of modernizing their presentations beyond a barrage of trailers and content, and reminding advertisers what platforms their portfolios contain, what sports leagues they provide access to and the tools they’ve created to simplify the process, and the demand for tickets to the presentations reflects that. Also: TV leaders predict sports trends for this year’s upfront A third buyer expressed similar sentiments and added that as sports remain a central component of upfront commitments, companies with rights to the top leagues and programming around them will see the most buy-in during the upfront. At CES this year, Disney debuted many of the tech capabilities it will be taking to market in the upfront, including new shoppable ad formats, AI-powered audience targeting and additional measurement partners. NBCUniversal Buyers are curious to see how the dust has settled since Linda Yaccarino’s dramatic exit just before its upfronts show last May. The first buyer pointed to the “new generation of sales leadership” as an area of interest, referring to NBCU’s ad chief, Mark Marshall, as well as Fox’s recently installed ad leader, Jeff Collins. “Linda was all razzle dazzle—she was an incredible leader and drove the marketplace forward for sure,” said the buyer. “Mark’s got a different approach. He’s been saying, ‘We’ve been talking about our audience graph and our ability to buy our audiences across all of our inventory, and ways in which you can manage reach and frequency—it was mostly bullshit. But now we can really do it.’ That’s interesting.” A fourth buyer also said that while the media company typically generates buzz around its latest data capabilities each year, “without Linda, it will be interesting to see what they bring out.” NBCU has already been promoting its new capabilities for the upfront over the past few months. At CES, the media company announced an AI-powered tool meant to plan and measure audiences across its linear and streaming portfolio. And at its One24 tech conference, NBCU debuted a slimmed-down list of measurement partners and new ad formats. More: NBCU’s ad president on AI, sports and the upfront market A fifth buyer said that although NBCU hasn’t been No. 1 in upfront dollar commitments, it does drive the most demand among their clients. The buyer said that NBCU does the best job with content integrations and has some of the most coveted sports programming. More importantly, the buyer said, the 2024-2025 broadcast year is looking “sad in terms of events and programming,” and NBCU is boosted by the “amount of stuff” that they have that consistently delivers, such as the cultural buzz around Bravo content, its NFL programming and the recent success of sports on Peacock. Amazon Prime Video Prime Video ranks at the top of many clients must-buy lists, according the fourth media buyer. There is excitement percolating for its first upfront show with an ad-supported tier for its entertainment content. In particular, buyers were frustrated by Prime Video’s late arrival to the ad market, and anticipate its entrance in the upfront to boost competition for commitments among the media companies. Prime Video has already announced the addition of ad formats utilizing Amazon’s retail catalog and data for shoppable TV. “Amazon has great content, a large audience and good data,” said the fourth buyer, but added that the tech company has historically been “hard to work with, so people are trying to figure out how best to take advantage of what they have to offer.” The buyer hopes Amazon’s entrance into the upfront market will teach the retail powerhouse more of the traditional media relationship-building possessed by legacy TV players. This may be aided by Amazon’s recent hire of former NBCU ad executive Krishan Bhatia to lead Amazon’s streaming ads business. Another factor driving excitement for Amazon is its intentions to expand its sports offering, said the third buyer. The Athletic reported that Amazon and the NBA have established the framework of a deal to begin streaming games beginning in the 2025-2026 NBA season. Although the deal isn’t final, the halo effect of expanded league partnerships with Amazon in the future will drive more ad business now, said the buyer. Warner Bros. Discovery Four of the five media buyers said that Warner Bros. Discovery commands the least demand of the upfront week presenters among clients. Coverage of negotiations for NBA rights has had the inverse effect for Warner Bros. Discovery as it has for Amazon, as multiple outlets have reported the potential for NBCU to outbid the media company for the rights renewal starting in the 2025-2026 season. “The company that’s going to be the most nailed and jailed is Warner [Bros. Discovery] because they’re so full of cable nets and they might lose the NBA,” said the fifth buyer. The buyer said that as advertisers continue to shift spend to streaming, broadcast networks are the anchors for many media companies selling linear assets because “if you want mass reach, they’re still extremely relevant.” “They’re still thought of as a grouping of cable networks,” agreed the second buyer, saying Warner Bros. Discovery suffers from an unclear storyline since the merger between Warner Media and Discovery. “Although broadcast networks aren’t what they were, they still hold that cache of being one of the big upfront pieces versus just cable networks and some streaming.” However, the second buyer said Warner Bros. Discovery is a large partner for many clients, and they will do business with the company in the upfront. Warner Bros. Discovery’s first-quarter financial report showed an 11% decline in advertising revenue across its cable networks, compared with a 70% increase in ad revenue for its direct-to-consumer assets, including HBO, Max and Discovery+. While the company didn’t break out subscriber numbers for each platform or the tiers within them, industry intelligence company Antenna reported that 27% of Max’s subscribers were ad-supported as of March 2024. Watch: Gen Z discusses streaming and other media habits The first buyer said that while mergers and acquisitions have helped other media companies, they have been a hindrance for Warner Bros. Discovery in the ad market. The buyer said pre-merger, Discovery was able to “drive inflation across their portfolio” because of demand for HGTV and Food Network inventory. Now, “they’ve actually lost leverage with us because they have so much more to sell,” said the buyer. “If I want HGTV and Food, and they say, ‘Well here’s all this Warner stuff too,’ I don’t need that stuff. That’s where they thought a merger would give them leverage, but it didn’t.” In response, Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. ad sales officer at Warner Bros. Discovery said the media company’s “content is platform agnostic…Advertisers can engage with us regardless of platform through a unified single point of contact.” Steinlauf said the past years have been difficult markets to merge assets and leadership teams during. However, Warner Bros. Discovery’s growth in streaming and new capabilities for advertisers to aggregate audiences across its linear and streaming assets will make it competitive in this year’s upfront market, according to Steinlauf. The ad chief said more information about the media company’s “One WBD” sales platform will be expressed in its upfront show. In terms of ongoing negotiations with the NBA, “we remain hopeful on the deal, but negotiations have zero impact on this year’s upfront as we will have it for the 2024-2025 season,” said Steinlauf. YouTube “Usually clients say, ‘I want Disney, NBCU and Google,‘” said the second buyer. “Those are the big three. Not that they don’t look at the others, but those are the three that clients definitely want to be in the room [for their upfronts], they want to see the show, they want to know what’s going on and they want to buy.” The first buyer also said that YouTube is in high demand among clients. In addition to its large scale in streaming in an ecosystem where TV streaming platforms are fighting to grow subscribers, the buyer said it commands a lot of power with young viewers that clients want. And YouTube is differentiated in its ability to give advertisers access to its top creators, which the first buyer said is a point of envy for upfront competitors. However, the fourth media buyer put YouTube at the bottom of their list, saying it’s difficult to talk to clients about precisely what they’re buying on YouTube because the platform “talks about the power of YouTube in aggregate” without educating advertisers on its individual capabilities. As more tech and streaming platforms enter the upfront market, the buyer said YouTube needs to find new ways to differentiate itself from its competitors.

Which media companies will win the TV upfront, according to buyers

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