Curated Guide to Research
MediaPost's comprehensive guide to current research in the marketplace.
Search results for "upfront"
- 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.
- Nielsen has had other longstanding issues with marketers and media, such as measuring the full impact of cross-platforms' media impressions and associated advertising data.
- This year, as the world is inching back to normal, COVID production schedules are delaying several pilots until later this summer (although I have seen a few). So, while I had planned to include my predictions of new series hits and misses in this report, that will have to wait until more pilots are available. In lieu of that, this week's report will focus exclusively on how to evaluate the success potential of new series pilots. In the 40 years or so I've been analyzing the television landscape, the benchmark of success for a new broadcast series has continually shifted, with the bar gradually getting lower and lower.
- Fox Corp. has now finished its upfront deals at "unprecedented" business revenue levels, with 20% gains in cost-per-thousand viewer pricing for its linear TV business and higher overall revenues, similar to other network groups.
- The company is starting a "Pricing Intelligence Suite" showing comparison of advertising CPMs for linear and digital media.
- For insiders at media agencies, networks, and advertisers (as well as tv analysts like me), the upfront season has placed thoughts of September squarely into May and June. In this week's edition, I raise -- and hopefully answer -- the fundamental question: Do the upfronts still matter?
- Prior to the 2020-21 TV season, I released an annual report examining the impact of pre-season buzz on new TV shows. Each time my conclusion has been the same: despite some notable exceptions, there is no correlation between the level of pre-season buzz a show receives and whether it becomes successful once it premieres. In this week's edition, I provide a post-pandemic update, but here's a little background: Until the early-2000s, the broadcast networks almost exclusively aired repeats during the summer and there was virtually no television-based news other than previewing new fall series - which would typically begin right after the network upfront presentations in late May, and continue unabated through the start of the new season in late September. There was ample time to create buzz for the fall TV shows. That was before cable networks aired numerous original scripted series during those months, before the broadcast networks started airing summer reality, game shows, and limited-run series, and before the advent of streaming services.
- A Standard Media Index analysis of national TV ad spending by type of media buy -- upfront, scatter and direct-response -- reveals a pattern of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic-related ad recession of 2020. While the national TV ad market collapsed in Q2 like many other media options -- especially non-digital "linear" ones -- it has begun to rebound in the Q1 of this year -- especially for upfront.
- By one important measure -- the premium advertisers pay to buy short-term scatter advertising vs. what they paid in the upfront -- demand for network advertising inventory appears to have rebounded.
- In this week's edition I offer some wide-ranging thoughts to set the stage for this year's marketplace.
