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The 2024 NewFront’s schedule is finally here.
Though this year features new additions and companies such as Amazon and Peacock departing, IAB’s 2024 schedule largely mirrors last year’s lineup. Events take place from April 29th to May 2nd in New York, with presentations showcasing the latest innovations in technology, data and ads.
“If you think about NewFronts over the years, our reason for existence is to bring to the marketplace the best of new content, the best of new technology, the best of new data,” David Cohen, CEO of IAB, told ADWEEK. “I think you’ll see that in spades this year.”
Among the highlights, Google, an IAB NewFronts Principal Partner, will kick off the 2024 NewFronts on Monday, April 29, with breakfast followed by the first NewFronts presentation of the week.
Additionally, the NewFronts features the return of IAB’s Main Stage on Wednesday, May 1, with a curated selection of 20 companies presenting throughout the day at Convene 225 Liberty and actor Alfonso Ribeiro signed on to host.
“The reason we do that, at the risk of stating the obvious, is to give access to those presenters that can’t afford the big venues and democratized access to minority-owned businesses and businesses that might not have the opportunity to present in the past,” Cohen said.
Newcomers to the week include the IAB Spotlight on News at the NewFronts, which features an event on April 29, bringing news executives, advertisers and industry leaders to discuss the importance of supporting journalism today. BBC, CNN, Condé Nast, NBCUniversal, NPR, The Guardian US, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal will all be on hand.
In addition, Thursday’s lineup features a Sport’s Innovation Lab session focused on women’s sports marketing.
“That’s another area that is taking off lately,” Cohen said. “And we wanted to make sure that we devoted some specific time to the sports marketing ecosystem.”
Among the presenter changes this year, Amazon is out, announcing in February that it would move into the upfront week for a May 14 presentation, and Peacock is becoming a part of NBCU’s upfront presentations.
“There’s a lot of ‘drama’ around upfronts versus NewFronts. I don’t see it as a competition at all,” Cohen said of the departures. “We are in a large video ecosystem. The time-space continuum will not afford us to present everything in a single week, so we divided it into two.”
Though this year’s lineup reflects last year’s, Cohen noted that he’s never seen the industry going through as many changes as it is today, and he’s not opposed to changes coming to the NewFronts in the future, encouraging the industry to voice its opinions.
“The question that we have to ask ourselves just in general, is this timing of present presentations the right timing for the industry? The upfront season was created when new cars were being introduced in the fourth quarter and the broadcast year was different than the calendar year,” Cohen said. “In a world where we’re always-on, 24/7, always optimizing, the question I think we have to ask: Is this the best that we can do? Or do we need to kind of change the timing and change the format?”
See the full NewFronts schedule below:
