Commentary

TV's New Upfront Season: How About One-upping One's Deals?

It's April and six weeks to go to the upfront -- or, as it will be renamed after this year, the upheaval.

How crazy will it be? Surely, any marketers worth their salt will tell their media agency it's not only about integrated marketing deals or integrated digital platform pacts, but those crazy engagement and commercial ratings guarantees everyone seems to want.

You say what about live plus same day or live plus seven day ratings? Pick your poison this year. Either way you'll need a good story to tell your bosses. But don't look to set any kind of benchmarks down the line. This will be the year that everyone will have his or her own TV measuring system --for whatever that's worth.

Nielsen Media Research will just add to the confusion -- offering its commercial rating system after every media researcher in town has come up with their upfront ratings and pricing estimates.

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"Get me something for this upfront!" one can almost hear company marketing executives screaming in conversations with their agency media buyers. Good soldiers -- veteran media buyers --will get them something. But will it be just window dressing on the upfront house?

In last year's upfront, NBC and some cable networks inked a number of "engagement" upfront deals, while ABC sold some "commercial ratings" agreements. With that kind of tease, everyone will be hard-pressed to make deals as usual.

Some pundits are saying that the networks should sit the whole process out --let marketers come to their senses.

But look closer and see the real story: This season's upfront money was weaker last year than the year before. Then this scatter season witnessed an influx of more scatter money than in previous periods.

All that ironically put back some credibility to the upfront process --just as it's set to undergo its supposed massive change. (That is, if you buy early and buy often, you get a better price than if you wait.)

The idea is to make everyone happy this upfront season. Give everyone is a little taste of things to come. But don't get used to those appetizers. It'll be a new menu in a year to come.

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