A+E Networks Wants to Count Every Person—Especially Those Over 55—in Upfront

A+E Networks is kicking off 2022’s upfront season with a presentation urging marketers that “Every Person Counts,” and not just the audiences within the legacy age demos that they have traditionally sought. That key theme continues A+E’s shift from transacting on legacy demos like adults 18-49 and 25-54 to total audience metrics that the company first pushed for in last year’s upfront, and also aligns with the company’s DEI initiatives. “You really have to value every potential customer. Every person counts when it comes to all things diversity,” Peter Olsen, evp, ad sales, A+E Networks, told Adweek. In its virtual event Wednesday afternoon, A+E Networks—whose top brands include History, Lifetime and A&E—also set nearly 2,000 hours of new programming for the 2022-2023 upfront season. A+E Networks Says Digital Ad Buys Are Essential for ‘the Total Picture’ Its new slate includes shows from A-listers like Leonardo DiCaprio (executive producing History’s presidential miniseries Theodore Roosevelt, as well the History documentary Sitting Bull, about the famous Hunkpapa Lakota chief), LeBron James (executive producer of After Jackie, a History documentary about the generation of Black baseball players that followed Jackie Robinson), Robin Roberts (executive producing Harlem Hellfighters, a History documentary about the World War I all-Black military infantry unit) and Peyton Manning (hosting and executive producing the series History’s Greatest of All-Time with Peyton Manning and executive producing the competition series The Einstein Challenge). There will also be 130 hours of WWE-themed series and specials under a new multiyear partnership with A&E, including WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures and WWE Rivals. Despite the shifts in consumer viewing habits during the pandemic, “if you put on a really good show, people will find it,” said Olsen, pointing to recent hits like the Janet Jackson documentary on A&E and Lifetime, and the Secrets of Playboy docuseries on A&E. “TV's got a tremendous value still. We still think it's the best place to be to build brands.” This year, A+E has organized its upfront content for advertisers by genre instead of brand, as it has historically done, sorting the programming into historical/documentaries, biographies/pop culture and movies/features. That shift in grouping “aligns more with people’s passions,” said Olsen. The company is debuting a new lifestyle genre, Home.Made Nation, which includes home improvement, food and innovation content. After “quietly” being in the home space for the past decade, the company has seen “impressive results” for that content and is making a bigger push this year, including a new series from Rachael Ray, Rachael Ray’s Renovation Rescue. "As our industry continues to evolve, we remain focused on premium, popular and relevant stories and storytellers and are expanding the ways our viewers can find our content, from the shows they know and love to bold new programming in the most in-demand genres,” Paul Buccieri, president and chairman, A+E Networks Group, said in a statement. “In an ever-changing landscape, we are providing our advertisers more: more programming featuring the world's most beloved talent, more best-in-class opportunities to reach their targets, and more custom solutions to exceed their goals and deeply engage their audiences." Making sure ‘Every Person Counts’ Last year’s approach to moving beyond legacy demos was “game changing” for A+E, said Olsen. Now two-thirds of the company’s ad revenue is guaranteed beyond those legacy demos, and “we want to see more progress” this year in expanding the definition of demos. To that end, Olsen and his team are coming armed with research showing the “massive” marketplace impact in adults 55 and up when it does comes to ad engagement and spending, said Marcela Tabares, evp, ad sales research, A+E Networks. “You don’t want to start off excluding people with artificial constraints like demos. You want to start off with, everybody’s a potential customer. And then use data to show who are the most likely prospects for a brand,” said David Ernst, vp, ad sales research, A+E Networks. A+E hopes advertisers will evolve their creative to be more inclusive of older audiences, which the company said will further increase engagement and spending. The company conducted an AI audit with MarketCast, looking at 20,000 national TV ads, and found that only one in 10 faces in those spots were older than 50. “We know that there's a great opportunity here if you expand the demo, think about your prospective consumers and then represent them in an authentic, resonant way,” said Tabares. However, the company’s “Every Person Counts” mantra has a double meaning: it also refers to the industry’s efforts to improve measurement and find alternatives to Nielsen currency. “We have to count every person,” said Olsen, adding that all of the companies trying to evolve measurement “have got to innovate. They’ve got to get to a point where it’s good data, it’s easy to ingest and it’s something we can all respond to.” While several rivals have publicly partnered with one or two measurement companies to test alternate currencies, A+E is testing “virtually with everybody,” said Ernst, so it is prepared for whichever solultions the industry ultimately embraces. No streamer, no problem Unlike most of its rivals, A&E won’t be touting an SVOD streaming service during the upfront, because the company doesn’t have one. But Olsen said that company still has a substantial streaming presence. “Instead of placing a single big bet on our own streaming service, we’ve chosen to partner with virtually every streamer out there,” said Olsen. “We think it gives us actually greater insights into the entire ecosystem, because we're partnering with a dozen of these guys versus bringing it all into one walled garden.” And in many cases, advertisers can still come along for the ride, which, depending on the platform, involves everything from traditional ads to embedded content to integrations. “We have the ability to take an individual client along a pretty interesting journey across a lot of touchpoints,” said Olsen. Going early, going virtual A+E’s upfront is one of the only all-virtual presentations this year, as May’s upfront week will be in-person for the first time since 2019. But the company wanted to stick to its usual early March upfront date, “because it gets the story out earlier and allows a lot more dialogue,” said Olsen. And given that decision “we felt like virtual was the right move for March 2,” said Olsen, adding that he and his team will follow up the presentation with in-person meetings over the next few months.