Streamers Strut Into NewFronts Buoyed by Pandemic Audience Gains

During NewFronts this year, everything’s coming up streaming. It’s not just because the name of the annual digital content event for marketers, hosted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), is subtitled "Living the Stream." It’s also not just that nine streamers are presenting alongside other digital and broadcast media companies showing off their streaming chops. And it isn't just because it’ll be the second year in a row that the event, hosted by Maria Menounos, will be livestreamed. On top of all this, streamers are heading into NewFronts with more confidence than ever. Thanks to the pandemic’s well-documented effects on consumer behavior, streamers are diving into the week with an arsenal of proof points and an expectation that budgets will finally start to shift from linear to streaming. Brands and agencies are newly flush with big marketing budgets as the economy improves and consumer sentiment rises, and streamers are looking to put on a show that’s irresistible to the buy-side. “Last year was the first time we were part of the IAB NewFronts, and that felt like an even bigger coming out, but it was at a very difficult time where there was a lot of uncertainty," said Mark Rotblat, chief financial officer of Fox-owned free streaming service Tubi. "And this year, it is an even bigger coming out because we can point to … all of the growth that we’ve had and the great planning and collaboration now that we are part of [at] the larger Fox.” This optimism is shared by other new kids on the block. Twelve months of high audience figures, plus the monthslong industry drumbeat about the importance of streaming, has laid a strong foundation for those services and platforms that are looking to court advertising dollars. “We saw the shift and the acceleration from a consumer perspective from linear TV to streaming, but we didn’t know what to make of it from a brand perspective. Now we’re really able to prove it out,” said Kristina Shepard, head of agency partnerships and the national brand team lead at Roku, which made its NewFronts debut last year. Growing, Growing, Gone Amazon Advertising announced in February that it reached more than 55 million active monthly viewers of OTT content across its platform. That’s nearly three times more than 20 million monthly active viewers than a year prior. Roku cleared 51.2 million active accounts by the end of 2020, an addition of 14.3 million incremental active accounts in a year’s time. Streaming hours on the platform increased by 20.9 billion hours year over year to 58.7 billion hours. As of August 2020, Tubi had 33 million monthly active users, up 65% from the prior year. In 2020, total viewing on the platform reached 2.5 billion hours, up 58% from 2019. Streaming services and platforms have long been anticipating the shift to streaming, and this year’s NewFronts lineup reflects that. This year, nine streaming services, platforms and connected TV devices are presenting, and both A+E Networks and NBCUniversal are joining to underscore their over-the-top options. Several of those presenters are newcomers that are also heading into the month armed with last year’s audience surges. Amazon, after canceling its inaugural NewFronts presentation a year ago, is planning a curtain-raiser on its offerings for the first time. It will focus on its free streamer IMDb TV, live-streaming platform Twitch, Fire TV connected devices and live sports offerings, all of which notched substantial growth during the pandemic, said Mark Eamer, Amazon’s vp of OTT, brand advertising and IMDb TV. “There has been a profound audience behavior shift and a rapid surge in streaming, especially over this last year,” Eamer said. Being at the NewFronts will help Amazon get its entire ecosystem in front of marketers at once and showcase the various opportunities. As DIY production quality goes out the window, returning streamers are hoping to retain some of the selling points that were attractive to marketers last year, including flexible buys and platform precision. “Flexibility is something that ramped up last year, and it’s only something we will continue to double down on,” said Shepard, who in talks last year saw the buy-side respond well to the ability to cancel and optimize Roku buys without penalty. “That will differentiate a Roku streaming investment with that of a traditional television investment.” Many streamers have limited inventory, especially on their flashiest products, and marketers scrambling to spend their budgets are calling them early. “Advertisers are leaning in already and having the discussions to be able to move quickly in the marketplace this year,” Rotblat said. “We are having those kinds of pre-upfront conversations so that agency and brand strategists can begin their planning prior to the upfront discussions.”