Curated Guide to Research
MediaPost's comprehensive guide to current research in the marketplace.
Search results for "upfront"
- The official start of the fall television season is still about four months away. But for insiders at media companies, agencies, and advertisers (as well as television analysts like me), the upfront season has placed thoughts of September squarely into May and June. Of course, in today's video world, the very notion of a fall TV season is antiquated. Only the broadcast networks still adhere to seasons that begin in September and end in April or May (and promote "fall finales" like they're special episodes). Cable series tend to premiere throughout the year, and streaming platforms debut new shows and new seasons whenever they happen to be ready, which is not always in the same month as the previous season (and viewers often have to wait more than a year for the next installment).
- As we head into upfront season, there's a reason you're hearing the term "performance media" now more than ever. Data - and the collection of it - has never been more robust.
- New Street Research modeled Netflix's fill rate at around 45% for 2025 - expected to rise to 70% in 2026 and 90% in 2027. "At that point it slows to modest annual increases, eventually reaching 95% in 2030."
- A survey by iSpot finds 16% of advertisers believe there will be declines in their budgets (1% to 49%), and 27% will see gains (1% to 49%) - while just 1% see their budgets climbing by 50% or more.
- Former Canoe Ventures CEO David Porter has been hired as head of ad sales research, data, and insights of Warner Bros. Discovery.
- Streaming has cemented its place in the marketplace, with 30% of respondents saying 20% or more of upfront budgets would go to digital video platforms.
- The outlook for TV and CTV continues to be an "unsettled ad market," according to Bernstein Research, with projections that linear video ad spend will move down with the spend "slightly up to flat in streaming," according to Laurent Yoon, media analyst for Bernstein, in a recent report.
- Disney Advertising is adding more data-measurement providers, expanding its "clean room" efforts and has started its first streaming "shoppable" ad format. Disney released these new additions at its annual "Global Tech & Data Showcase" on Wednesday for the first time at the Consumer Electronics Show.
- Guggenheim Securities estimates a 6.8% drop in revenue for Q4 after a 10.4% decline in Q3 - but media analyst Michael Morris says to "expect more meaningful improvement in the fourth quarter as the company benefits from the upfronts."
- ESPN has been said among analysts to be the glue that holds the traditional pay TV bundle together. With its departure, cord-cutting could dramatically accelerate.
- "What we are witnessing is both forms of TV content access - linear and streaming - coming together in the thinking of major national TV advertisers and their time buyers," says MediaDynamics President Ed Papazian. This year's linear TV upfront ad market is down 5% to a combined $19.1 billion, according to Media Dynamics estimates, while streaming platforms from TV network-owned companies have seen a 31% rise to $8.03 billion.
- The answer depends on what you believe the role of the MRC actually is. Or at least, what it's supposed to be.
- How do you NOT get to Carnegie Hall, if you're Paramount's upfront pitch team? You practice dining, dining, dining!
- Nearly a third of advertisers say they'll allocate more than 20% of their upfronts budgets to streaming platforms.
- NBCU and WPP's BAV Group think so -- and they have just released the latest findings from two decades of brand metric-tracking research to prove it.
- Economic uncertainty has made investment flexibility and ROI bigger priorities than ever, confirms an Advertiser Perceptions buyer survey.
- This most likely is the most anticlimactic Agency of The Year award profile I will ever write. That's because I called GroupM as our probable holding company-level entity of the year at the mid-year mark back in July, based on what it had already accomplished by that point. I added that it was GroupM's to lose, and challenged its peers to step up and prove me wrong.
- NBCU saw an opportunity for an inflection point in 2022 and executed what is probably the best sell-side research and marketing effort to restructure the TV ad marketplace since Turner's Media at the Millennium shifted billions of dollars from broadcast to cable.
- "The overall mix of advertising shifts possibly in favor of brand rather than performance," suggests GroupM's Brian Wieser, adding: "Isn't that an interesting observation?"
- The upfront TV marketplace, including broadcast and cable TV nets, posted "modest" gains -- up 5.8% to $20.1 billion, according to estimates from Media Dynamics. While broadcast and cable nets grew similarly in volume -- up 6.4% (to $9.9 billion) and 5.2% (to $10.2 billion), respectively -- broadcast showed strength when it comes to prime-time 30-second commercials in terms of the cost-per-thousand (CPM) viewers.
- Signaling a wider macro-view of a possible slowdown in advertising, traditional TV-based media companies' stock prices declined sharply after Snap said on Tuesday it is seeing a sharp deceleration of its digital ad revenues. MoffettNathanson Research senior research analyst/co-founder Michael Nathanson says there are some concerns that Q2 may end a bit soft. Many companies sank to new 52-week lows.
- The study comes as a perfect storm of developments have led up to a Babel-like 2022-23 upfront marketplace, in which a variety of "alternate" and unaccredited currencies are expected to be used.
- Legacy TV has seen higher "effective" cost-per-thousand prices for deals in the TV upfront ad markets over the last three TV seasons, according to Standard Media Index -- but with lower total upfront ad spend in key dayparts. The current TV season is now averaging $55,000 for a 30-second commercial unit, down from $59,000 from the previous TV season (2020-2021).
- Upfront buys will also be about evenly divided among CTV-first, linear-first and combined, according to a new survey from Advertiser Perceptions and The Trade Desk.
- Shimmel says the industry has faced challenges "trying to forecast, using a Nielsen data set and Nielsen panel size that was too small to reflect the fragmentation of the industry."
- "Alternative currency is not just a question of research and methodology. It's about operationalizing it."
- It's unclear whether the RFP is related to the ANA's "Cross-Media Measurement initiative," which it said would pilot a new "virtual people ID" methodology developed by Comscore by the end of this quarter.
- Hulu is forecast to hit $3.13 billion in 2021, with YouTube at $2.54 billion and Roku at $1.58 billion, according to eMarketer.
- The growth of CTV media deals may be having a major effect on business in terms of pricing and when to place messaging. Brand TV marketers have also shifted 20% to 25% of their budgets to streamers.
- MoffettNathanson estimates Q4 TV advertising will be down 1% versus the same period a year ago, largely due to slower scatter TV advertising sales.
