The CW Is First Broadcaster to Wrap Upfront Talks, With Hefty CPM Increases

For the past month, media companies and marketers have talked about quickly upfront talks were progressing this year—and the first broadcaster has now crossed the finish line in its negotiations. The CW has wrapped its upfront talks, becoming the first broadcast network to do so this year, according to a person familiar with negotiations. The network pushed for CPM (cost per thousand viewers reached) increases between 19% and 21%, according to this person; that's significantly more than last year’s negotiations, which had been impacted by the pandemic. It also saw volume increases in its linear and digital offerings. Unlike its rivals, the network had more linear inventory to bring into this year’s negotiations. The network will expand its schedule to Saturday nights in October, programming all seven days a week for the very first time; the network saw strong demand for the additional night. “Getting two more hours on the linear platform, which happens to be Saturday night, also gives us two more shows to put on our digital platforms for our consumer to watch," Rob Tuck, evp, national sales, The CW, told Adweek last month. "It’s great anytime we can expand our footprint. We’re the little guy—we don’t have the other dayparts. Getting seven nights for two hours every night, I couldn’t be more pleased.” With the Saturday expansion, “we felt that there’s an opportunity here to increase our linear reach, which gives our advertisers more programming and more inventory,” The CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz told reporters last month. Adding new clients The network picked up several dozen new multiplatform clients in the upfront, according to the source, which Tuck previously told Adweek had been a top priority for the network. "We love the new guys to come on. I would sooner have a lot more newer advertisers, numbers-wise, than get massive budgets from a select few," Tuck said. "The more you can spread yourself out to different brands in the different categories and grow the categories—[that] has always been beneficial to our network." The CW was the only traditional upfronts week presenter not to hold an event last month. “We just decided that everybody in this business, including ourselves, has spent most of the past year-plus on video calls, and to do one more for the advertisers just did not make any sense,” Tuck told Adweek. “We felt at this point, a better bang for our buck would be by having individual meetings and calls with each of the groups and our clients, find out really what’s going on with their business and give them an update about how we’re handling business.” The CW is jointly owned by ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia, which last month announced plans to merge with Discovery. The WarnerMedia-Discovery merger does not impact The CW’s plans “at the moment,” Pedowitz told reporters in May, adding that “we’re going to adapt, put our heads down and do our job.” While marketers are shifting some linear ad spend to digital in this year’s upfront, that was not an issue for The CW during negotiations, said Tuck. “We’ve been doing it for over 10 years; that shift has happened on The CW,” he said. “It had to, because our young audience went there; they’re the first to adapt and to try new things. And we know the advertisers follow the eyeballs.” The CW’s Rob Tuck on Sitting Out Upfronts Week and Expanding to Saturdays