Pomp and circumspect: do we still need upfronts?
Review
Now that the spectacle of last week’s upfronts has receded, industry professionals reflect on the practicality and effectiveness of the lavish events in a changing TV landscape.
Brendan Marrese knew he wanted to do media investments since he was in middle school, in part because he thought it was cool to get to watch TV shows before they came out.
“My life goal was never to be a rock star or be famous or travel the world. It was: I want to go to upfronts.”
Now SVP and group media director of investments at IPG agency Mediahub Worldwide, (and an attendee of upfronts in each of his 12 years at the agency), Marrese describes himself as an outlier in the media industry in that he always loved the showcases.
That is, until last week.
“Some of my colleagues [think they’re a waste of time]. I’ve never truly agreed with that. After [last] week, I struggle with them a bit.”
Hyperbolic. Superlative. Succinct. Splashy. Pomp and circumstance. These are just some of the adjectives used to describe this year’s upfronts, which concluded last Thursday in Manhattan, in interviews to The Media Leader.
The week-long lavish and star-studded affair was the first in-person upfronts event since before the pandemic, a much-needed excuse for media and advertising personnel to meet up in person. A roast from Jimmy Kimmel and a performance by Stevie Wonder were just a bonus.
‘As much as things change, they stay the same’
The first official upfront was held 60 years ago by ABC in 1962, and it has since become a regular annual event for media buyers to make deals ahead of the fall television season – itself a relic of mid-century America, when television programming was scheduled for release in sync with new car models.
Fast forward to 2022: this year’s slew of announcements included Disney promoting new Marvel titles such as She Hulk: Attorney at Law and the second season of Loki, Sylvester Stallone promoting his new Paramount and Taylor Sheridan collaboration Tulsa King, and the inaugural upfront of the newly merged Warner Bros. Discovery, which focused heavily on live sports programming, scripted and unscripted shows, and new CNN original documentaries.
But the events were shorter on content than in previous years. The upfront model itself and its festivities have also drawn a much more mixed reaction from experts’ discussions with The Media Leader.
“As much as things change, they stay the same – big flashy spectacles in culturally and historically significant venues”, says multimedia consultant and former GroupM executive John Miles. “‘We have the best [content], we reach the largest audiences’ – always a lot of hyperbole and spectacle. But you expect that, that’s what these things are for, because you want to make buyers and clients feel really, really good about the state of the business and the state of what you’re going to be producing.”
WarnerMedia’s 2019 upfront was hosted at Madison Square Garden
Between high inflation, unstable global affairs, changing television consumption habits, and poorly performing media measurement tools, the state of the business, as with many right now, is uncertain. While presenters at upfronts did address such concerns, they did so with an excitable PR spin. After all, as Miles explains, upfronts essentially act as a futures market, based around the concept that TV advertising is a scarce good.
“The idea of the upfront is to make a future commitment against an attractive price and other favorable terms. […] You could argue that the structure creates some great economies of scale because you’re moving so much scale in a relatively efficient way, as opposed to being in the market every single day subject to price fluctuation.”
Miles adds: “’Upfront’ is sort of a false narrative. It’s more about long term, and what’s the right long-term commitment to make and why. And if the long term doesn’t make sense, then you don’t participate.”
‘A lot is now said but there isn’t a ton of substance’
Like Marrese, Paul Furia, head of content and creative packaging at independent creative company Media by Mother, conveyed a love of upfronts, which always occurred around his birthday. He also discussed a conviction that the event might be in need of some reform.
“For a guy who loved this week forever – and I still do – the announcement of a fall schedule, meaning that we’re all going to show up at one specific time decided by somebody else, kind of seems quaint right now,” said Furia.
He explains that with viewers now able to watch practically anything they want whenever they want on-demand, what was once exciting about upfronts – the schedule releases – is now barely a factor. Indeed, ABC, NBC, and Fox did not mention their fall schedules in their presentations, and Fox didn’t even release their upcoming schedule at all.
Platforms, now massive conglomerates with many linear channels and newly minted streaming services, have numerous options for broadcast. Productions that were once seasonal are now developed year-round and can be switched for debut from linear to streaming at any given moment. For upfronts, this means that what was once an event focused on useful information for media buyers has become much more of a pageant and a week to be wined-and-dined.
“A lot is now said but there isn’t a ton of substance,” says Marrese. “It’s very hard for me to know what I should be investing in and who to invest in based on the content. […] They all say big buzzwords, but what do they truly mean?
“I mean, do I love Miley Cyrus? Absolutely. Was it amazing seeing her perform? Definitely. Is that going to make me buy NBCUniversal? Like, no. At the end of the day that has no actual bearing on where I’m going to put my money.”
Radio City Music Hall played host to NBCUniversal’s upfronts presentation
In between big-name performances and late-night hosts ribbing the premature demise of CNN+, what content was discussed was reflective of the industry’s need to balance declining popularity in linear and ascendant, but not yet mature, advertising opportunities in streaming.
“The networks understand that the future is in their direct-to-consumer streaming platforms,” says Furia.
“They get it, and they understand that’s where viewer habit is going. The ability to showcase that you can get that content in a hybrid way – I think that was the intent of the entire week.”
He notes, however, that inventory on streaming is extremely depressed. Indeed, Disney announced that its advertiser video-on-demand (AVOD) offering on Disney+ will include just four minutes of ad time per hour – a far cry from the 16-minute average on linear TV. Such a light commercial load exacerbates scarcity, driving the need for advertisers to get in, and get in early, if they want their advertisements to be displayed on the platform.
Meanwhile, as premium creative content attracts young, affluent audiences on streaming, linear still rakes in viewers for live sports, cable news, and formulaic comedies and dramas. And, in part because there is comparably more transparency around linear measurement – flawed as it may be – buyers still see a significant amount of value in that arena.
‘You have the shows, and then you have the dinners, and then you have the meetings’
So why have upfronts at all? Procter & Gamble CEO Marc Pritchard this year railed against the buying process, asking, “do we buy anything else this way?”
But to Miles, Furia, and Marrese, despite some reason for negativity, there are still some benefits to the week.
For one, though buyers and sellers are increasingly interacting earlier in the year, upfronts still retains value as the “historical date by which the gates are open, we’re off to the races, now we can begin to negotiate,” Miles says.
Further, he adds, the event is a potent signal to Wall Street that these big, public media companies feel confident in their content and advertising sales for the year ahead.
And, perhaps most importantly, it is a way for media buyers, sellers, executives, and talent to all be in the room together, in-person.
“You have the shows, and then you have the dinners, and then you have the meetings, and you have the entire community coming together,” Furia says. “I think there’s value to sitting across from a partner you’re going to spend with every year and identify really what their priorities are, both the advertiser and the platform.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that reform isn’t necessary.
For one, Marrese would like to see more done for diversity and inclusion from the standpoint of media executives who come out and give presentations, as well as for more minority-owned media groups to be welcomed to the event (he did note, however, that there was a good effort made to amplify diverse talent).
Additional changes that would be of use to media buyers, he says, could be to set up more space for smaller group sessions and Q&As between media conglomerate executives and ad buyers.
Even then, there is a notion that the amount of money deluged throughout the week may not be worth it. While to Miles, the expense is a drop in the bucket for massive conglomerates – “When you look at the P&L of these companies in terms of the revenue they’re generating, a couple of million dollars to make an industry, from a perception standpoint, feel really good about continuing to invest in media that is pushed out by these companies, I think they feel it’s a worthwhile investment” – Marrese is more critical.
“Especially as these conglomerates continue to find ways to cut dollars [with layoffs, merging teams], I do think the upfront spectacle needs to be rethought.”
In the end, despite his misgivings with this year’s show, Marrese is still a firm believer in upfronts if not as a spectacle, then as a business opportunity.
“Television works. Premium video content works. You don’t have to participate in upfronts if you don’t want to – you can absolutely move and scatter when your budgets are ready, when you have a better idea on audience strategy and campaign creative – but, I do think getting ahead of it and spending a large amount to unlock greater benefits [is worth it]. […] The NFL sells out. Saturday Night Live sells out. The Macy’s Day Parade sells out. Yes, the ratings may be down, but at the end of the day, you’re still going to get that very large audience and a lot of our clients need to be there and want to be there.
“If you can get it at the cheapest price and locked in […] why would you not?”