Rob Tuck on 'the Elephant in the Room' During The CW's Upfront

Adweek is closing out our conversations with the ad sales chiefs who presented during upfront week. Thus far, we've chatted with NBCU’s Linda Yaccarino, Fox’s Marianne Gambelli, TelevisaUnivision’s Donna Speciale, Disney’s Rita Ferro, Warner Bros. Discovery's Jon Steinlauf and Paramount's Jo Ann Ross. Now, it's time for our final postmortem, with Rob Tuck, evp, national sales, The CW. The CW, which sat out upfront week for the past two years—it was the only presenter not to hold a virtual event—returned to New York City Center at an interesting time. The network has canceled several series, including Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, Charmed and Dynasty, in an apparent effort to pare down its slate as its joint owners, WarnerMedia and Paramount, consider a sale. Despite the unusual circumstances, CW delivered a tight upfront presentation on May 19, starting with a performance by Stevie Wonder and focusing on the network's new shows and offerings, including the unified CW app. In a conversation with Adweek, Tuck discussed the CW's first in-person upfront since 2019, the company's priorities in the presentation and, yes, the ownership elephant in the room. Adweek: The CW closed out the week of in-person upfronts, and you got thunderous applause when you said onstage that the presentation only focuses on one network. Were you expecting that? Tuck: Listen, I don't write the jokes. I'm not quite sure it was meant as a joke. It was a real, proper placement for a comment like that. And was I expecting all the applause and laughter? No, but it's always good to get when you're up on stage and say something that the audience absolutely agrees with. So we know there's a lot out there, but we think our message is pretty clean and clear, and it's been that way for some time. This isn't just The CW's first in-person upfront week presentation since 2019. The network also sat out upfront week entirely the last two years. Can you talk about the importance of that?We took time off like everybody else during the pandemic from the live presentation part of it. It was a little tough to do virtually. We thought that, over those years, it was the right thing to do. And then we also thought that this was the right thing to do, coming back and doing a live presentation to clients and getting them in the theater. It seems like everybody is ready to get back to doing business as usual and do business the way they typically would do it and have been doing it for many, many years. So it was good. It was a good feeling. I will say it did not feel like three years. It felt like we did it the year prior with no interruption. So I guess that speaks volumes right there. The CW Sets Fall Schedule, Riverdale Finale as Likely Network Sale Looms Was there any thought to not returning for an in-person upfront, or was this always the plan?I think this was the plan when we knew the shutdowns and all of that stuff was lifted. And we felt we could do a presentation where we weren't going to put anybody in danger or make people uncomfortable, given what we've all been dealing with for the last couple of years. We thought it was the right thing to do. Certainly, it turned out to be the right thing to do. How'd you end up structuring the presentation?The key thing for us is it's about content. Our advertisers are buying content. They're buying shows, whether the business is shifting to digital or not. Quite frankly, we shifted a long time ago. We have been in the linear-digital space for well over a decade. For us, trying to change that model where suddenly you're not going to announce what your schedule is on the linear platform, which still exists and is important, didn't make too much sense to skip that part. And again, that is the basis as we continue to build out our digital platform. It still relies on the content heavily. And the content that is coming off of our linear broadcast. We thought it was the right thing to do, the right format to do at this time. Mark Pedowitz, The CW CEO, mentioned the network is going through a transition. Why was that important to address during the presentation?I think that was the elephant in the room. If we just really tried to make it like nothing was happening with us—potentially—it would have raised a lot of questions. It was important for us to get out in front of it and address it right there. Certainly, we can't go into any detail of it because right now, there's no deal done. And for us, the way we have been conducting business is, business as usual. And we're going to continue to do that until that changes. Everything that we do and continue to do with the advertisers is giving them as much information and being as transparent as we possibly can. And that's all aspects of the business and deals that we do with these people. So we thought it was important. I think it was appreciated. It was a quick point. And then, we moved on to the meat and potatoes of the presentation. How are you navigating negotiations with that possible transition? For us, the sales group, this entire network, it's the same as we've been doing at upfronts for forever since I've been there. I've been there for 27 years. Prior, I was here for the WB days that moved into the CW days, and the upfront will be no different for us. No different at all, same process. With the canceled shows, does that affect inventory at all? Or, as you said, is it business as usual?Yeah, business as usual. I think we have just as many shows. We're going to fill out the seven days, 52 weeks a year. Mark Pedowitz, in his pre-presentation call, addressed the fact that it was going to be a transition year for us anyway. We had some shows that had done their time and were going to come off. And it's time to rebuild those pieces. And I think we got three great pieces. All the comments that I had gotten back and have gotten back from the buyers, they're excited about the three new scripted ones and the alternative stuff and the acquired stuff. We know who we are, and we know what our audience is, and we are trying to continue to program towards that and target that. For us, the way we have been conducting business is, business as usual. And we're going to continue to do that until that changes.—Rob Tuck, evp, national sales, The CW Talking about the audience, The CW has such a loyal and youthful audience. Do you think that's something that will continue then in the future?I think so. I'm just the sales guy. So I can't say anything other than I know that's Mark's goal. And that is our target audience. That's where we're headed. That's where we're unique and different versus the other guys. Last year, The CW was the first to finish upfront talks. Do you anticipate the market moving that fast this year too?It is pretty funny how that comes out. We are small. We're not the guys that are going to push this market through. We know what we need to do. I think it's easier for us because of the fact that we are one daypart. We're on linear; we're on digital. And for us, that's a lot easier to handle. We don't have as many buckets as everybody else needs to do. And so, once it's our time, and the advertisers let us know when they're teeing us up and getting ready to go, we do business. It doesn't take much to fill our tanks. The CW has folded CW Seed into one unified CW app. How will that factor into negotiations?This was a natural next step. We have been selling both apps in our overall digital strategy and convergent strategy for years. I think what the unified app does is make it easier for the consumer. It is similar, not the size of the other guys, but similar in scope. You have the first run, and you have those marquee shows and then you have library content, and that library content is served up or recommended when people finish watching an episode or watching a series on us. It has that same algorithm where it's similar likes, and you may like this. The sales team is happy about that. We don't have to have two separate places. That was probably a little difficult for the consumer to know that there was CW and CW Seed. So now, having it all under one umbrella is going to make it pretty seamless. For us, we've been selling the whole thing together as one anyway. What were some of the priorities you had for the presentation?First and foremost, content. The shows stand out because the advertisers need to see the shows that we're putting forth and the quality of the shows that we're putting forth from premier storytellers. That's what they're investing their money in, and their client's money in, for their brands to be associated with our brands, so to speak, our shows, the quality there. The unified app is a big part of Mark's story and our sales story. It will make it a lot easier and confirm what we've been doing in the digital space for quite some time. We're not pitching all these different types of data streams and all this different data. We've always felt that the advertisers know more about our audience, quite honestly, than we do. That's the value of tagging that these guys do. And they get quite a bit of research and knowledge about our audience. That is a very telling story and a strong story because, quite honestly, they get that research back. They find that The CW digital is fulfilling their needs, and they come back and spend more. That's a key part for us. Finally, for me, there are a lot of promises made with upfront deals, and we strive to deliver on those promises. We don't want to take someone's money and have the client come back and feel like they didn't get what they paid for. We make sure that if there are any issues, we come up with solutions to solve their problems versus just dumping it back on their laps. But for the most part, it is a partnership between us and the advertisers to make sure that we deliver and they're happy. We want them to be happy because we want them to come back. There are a lot of alternatives out there. You've probably heard some of the horror stories of deals not delivering and advertisers just stuck out there with no solutions. That's not our way. That's not the way we conduct ourselves in business. We want people to come back. We're in the business of taking care of our advertisers, growing our advertiser base each and every year. We strive to deliver on those [upfront] promises. We don't want to take someone's money and have the client come back and feel like they didn't get what they paid for.—Rob Tuck, evp, national sales, The CW So can you tell us anything about early negotiations?Obviously, this is that tough time with talking. I think every network is talking now, preliminary conversations with agencies. You try to make sure that the I's are dotted, the T's are crossed, so when you go into real formal discussions about budgets and mixes and CPM changes and stuff like that, all of this background stuff is agreed upon and clear. We're having all those conversations with everybody. As I said, we're not the big guy that's going to move the market. We will move along with it, and when our time comes, we're ready to go. Is there any message you want marketers to take from the presentation?From everything I've read and heard back from people, I think they got the message loud and clear. We're in business. We are going to continue to do our business the way we always have done. We're putting out great product. Like anybody else, we're not pitching any further about our digital or anything like that. Our digital is there. It's part of our overall multi-platform sale. They know it. If advertisers are looking to shift linear onto digital or digital onto linear, whatever, we work with them. And we try to figure it out. Our goal is to do as much business as we can with as many advertisers as we can because I think that's a good thing. That's a good thing for all.