Disney Upfront: Big Gains In Streaming, Sports

Disney Advertising has completed all its TV upfront deal-making, with streaming and sports content showing major gains and “overall volume consistent with last year.”

Media estimates a year ago put Disney at roughly $9.45 billion.

Streaming accounted for 40% of total upfront volume for Disney, which the company says is consistent with year-ago business.

Total sports TV advertising deals -- "linear and addressable" -- accounted for $4 billion in sales.

Disney says it signed 69 multi-year sports TV deals, as well as getting “double-digit” percentage growth for “Monday Night Football” and college football. It also witnessed double-digit growth for women’s sports.

ABC’s NBA programming saw “high single-digit volume growth,” driven by the highly viewed “NBA Finals” and “Inside the NBA”.

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Disney did not provide much detail regarding volume or price for linear TV prime time or other dayparts for entertainment -- for example, scripted and un-scripted.

However, Disney President of Global Advertising Disney Rita Ferro said via a press release: 

“As the velocity of change in the advertising landscape continues to accelerate, this upfront demonstrates the enduring power of storytelling, premium environments,” she said, adding that “our strength in streaming and live events delivers results at scale.

Earlier this month, Fox completed its upfront business with "double-digit" ad sales gains across sports, news and entertainment. Media executives say this would roughly translate into $2.4 billion in upfront revenue for the company in 2024.

NBCUniversal also wrapped up its upfront advertising, claiming a 15% increase for all broadcast dayparts -- estimated to be around $7.5 billion to $7.7 billion for all its ad businesses, according to media analysts.

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