The 7 Biggest Questions Heading Into Upfronts Week

Upfronts week—during which the biggest media companies hold their upfront presentations for marketers—was a no-go last year due to the pandemic, but almost every presenter has returned for the annual May event. Monday will kick off three days of virtual presentations from NBCUniversal, Fox, Discovery, Univision, Disney, WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS (only The CW, which usually wraps things up on Thursday morning, is sitting this year out). But this year’s upfronts week will occur in a landscape that has changed dramatically since the last time everyone assembled two years ago. The pandemic has accelerated the migration from linear to streaming, and every presenter has either launched or acquired new streaming services in that time to keep pace with the rapidly-evolving industry. As you prepare for the upfronts onslaught (check out Adweek’s upfronts calendar to find out who is presenting when), here’s a rundown of our seven biggest questions heading into upfronts week. Who will—and won’t—ignore the linear ratings elephant in the room? Linear ratings have been falling for years, but you would never have known that by listening to upfront presentations in recent years, where execs loudly proclaimed their companies to be No. 1 in some category or other, while simply skipping over the fact that their audience is shrinking. This season, the five broadcasters each weathered double-digit losses in their primetime total audience, which plummeted as much as one-third from a year earlier (Nielsen’s pandemic undercounting also partly contributed to that). After Covid-19’s steep viewership drops, some media companies have finally stopped ignoring the elephant in the room. During their upfront events in March, both A+E Networks and AMC Networks were surprisingly candid about acknowledging the shifting landscape, and the need to come up with alternatives. But it’s not a given that the upfronts week presenters will be as forthcoming about their ratings reality. Even as they show off their shiny new streamers, how many will admit that the linear business isn’t what it was—and likely never will be again? How will presenters respond to connected TV’s growing threat? Between the ratings declines and streaming surge, connected TV and other digital platforms can smell blood in the water, and they are making their most aggressive push yet during this upfront to siphon off some of the ad dollars that are usually reserved for linear TV. Digital outlets spent the entire NewFronts week urging marketers to follow the eyeballs moving away from linear. Now it’s the legacy media companies’ turn to respond—and their upfront presentations will be their opportunity to make the case that those ad dollars should remain in their respective ecosystems. We got a preview of what that counterattack might look like earlier this week, when NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino talked about the value of “trust” in marketing partnerships, but the presenters still have their work cut out for them. Linda Yaccarino Talks Value of ‘Trust’ in Marketing Partnerships as Tech Platforms Beckon In what ways will new leadership shake things up? This is the first upfront since NBCUniversal, Disney and WarnerMedia each unveiled major shakeups and reorganizations, moving streaming to the core of their businesses and putting new executives in charge of many of their networks and programming. Among the changes, two of the broadcast networks no longer have dedicated entertainment chiefs: NBC (where decisions for the entire NBCU television and streaming portfolio are made by entertainment networks chairman Frances Berwick and entertainment content chairman Susan Rovner) and ABC (where Craig Erwich oversees the broadcaster as well as Hulu). So what does that mean for the new broadcast, cable and streaming lineups—and can these execs grow their streaming slates without watering down their broadcast and cable offerings? We’ll find out next week. Will Discovery justify its upfronts week move? It’s easy to forget, because Discovery said way back in May 2019 that it would move into upfronts week—but because upfronts week was canceled last year, the company has never actually presented alongside Disney, WarnerMedia and the others, until now. Discovery certainly thinks it can hold its own against its rivals, especially with its new Discovery+ streaming service, but it remains to seen whether marketers will feel that the presentation is on par with the other upfronts week vets. How long can these presentations last? As media companies have merged and bulked up, their upfront presentations have also gotten longer, sometimes passing the two-hour mark. But it’s much harder to keep audiences engaged virtually versus in-person, so keep an eye on how long these events will last, and whether marketers start to run out of steam. (Get comfy: Disney has already indicated its virtual event will be around an hour and 45 minutes.) Does any of this really matter? No, I’m not talking about the $20 billion upfronts marketplace itself, but the upfronts week presentations. While each company will try to one-up its rivals and dazzle marketers with the biggest, splashiest presentation of the week, buyers tell Adweek that the individual events ultimately have little-to-no effect on their media budgets and upfront plans. Gone are the days when a single new show could get advertisers buzzing and carry that momentum into negotiations (as was the case when ABC screened the Modern Family pilot in its entirety). Still, it’s always possible that a surprise announcement or buzzy show could move the needle a tiny bit in one company’s favor. Finally, will we do this in person next year? After two years of virtual upfront events, publishers and marketers alike are wondering what next year’s presentations will look like—and whether post-pandemic normalcy includes the same multi-million dollar upfront events that have been an industry staple for decades. While some CFOs would love to cut the pricey galas out of their budgets permanently, upfronts week is still about oneupmanship, and no one wants to be the first to bow out. But a lot can happen in the next 12 months, so stay tuned.