upfronts

Amazon has packaged a handful of upgrades to its ads measurement solutions, obviously catered to TV and streaming media advertisers.

OpenAI has its own tracking pixel; Amazon sellers are boycotting the platform; and DirecTV hops on the CAPI bandwagon.

Measurement and performance are expected to dominate convos at upfronts; Tubi doubles down on AI; and Meta takes down ads encouraging anti-Meta lawsuits.

Now that upfront negotiations are almost over, the industry appears to have settled back into its default position of being mad at Nielsen – which is likely good news for its currency competitors, but not so great for everyone else in the meantime.

Critics say the FTC’s deal with OMG/IPG prohibits agency practices that don’t exist. And it distracts from legitimate concerns about brand safety news blocking and principal media.

Amazon is still lowering its Prime Video ad rates across the board. Plus, there are disadvantages to being a big tech giant.

In today’s newsletter: Amazon stands out among Upfronts CTV rookies; Google reveals how much revenue its ad tech divisions make; and women hold more marketing leadership positions than men, but churn is worse for women.

Woe is linear. Paramount is writing down its cable TV business by $6 billion and laying off 15% of its US workforce in advance of the Skydance merger.

Will data dazzle media buyers at this year’s TV upfronts? Plus: Why recent changes to Google search results have decimated traffic for some digital publishers – and rewarded others.

In a wildly exciting and inventive sector, YouTube is merely meeting the status quo – with scope for so much more.

As broadcasters do their best razzle dazzle routines at the upfronts, streamers and MVPDs alike, including Roku and DirecTV, are busy building programmatic ad tech stacks.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. NBCU Later Linda Yaccarino, NBCU’s (now former) chair of global advertising, is leaving the broadcasting giant to become Twitter’s new CEO. The news was confirmed in a tweet by Elon Musk, who will be stepping down as CEO within the next six weeks. […]

Disney bumped up its annual tech and data showcase from March to January this year to show off its ad targeting and measurement chops in time for the upfronts.

With the lines blurring between traditional TV content and streaming media, YouTube made its upfronts debut this year. YouTube VP Debbie Weinstein explains why.

The NewFronts are old news. Now it’s all about the upfronts, which are old. But don’t forget about the podcast upfronts, which are newer than the NewFronts but named after the TV oldfronts … or upfronts. Okay. Now that we’ve cleared that up, tune in for frontline reporting from the upfronts (TV and podcast varieties).

Nielsen’s recent missteps have been Comscore’s opportunity to make hay. At the height of the pandemic, Nielsen identified an unlikely trend that the amount of time American adults spent with media while stuck at home had actually declined. But Comscore’s data told quite a different story, says CEO Bill Livek on this week’s episode. When […]

“On TV & Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.  Today’s column is by Joel Cox, Co-Founder and EVP, Innovation & Strategy, Strategus. If you buy it, they will come. Media buyers increased their ad spend on connected TV (CTV) during this year’s upfronts by almost 50%, according to […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Vizionary Vizio Ads made big gains during the recent upfronts negotiations, where Roku has been the CTV champion in recent years. Vizio announced in a press release that it locked in more than $100 million for 2022, quadrupling its total from last year (which […]

Nielsen’s potential loss of its accreditation by the Media Rating Council as early as this week could fuel greater adoption of alternative measurement currencies that use advanced data and analytics rather than the traditional panel-based surveys the measurement giant is known for. Nielsen has long been accused of undercounting TV viewership. Recently, networks have expressed […]

Roku saw viewership decline in Q2 as pandemic restrictions eased. Streaming hours dropped a billion hours from Q1 to 17.4 billion hours in Q2, and the company’s stock was down 9% on Thursday. While Roku’s streaming hours declined sequentially, they still increased 19% from the previous year, during the early days of lockdown. It added […]

After an upfront season where buyers snapped up CTV inventory, programmatic buyers are concerned that there won’t be much left. This spike in digital video deals, along with a post-pandemic decrease in viewership, could make it difficult for advertisers to access programmatic inventory in the fourth quarter of 2021 and beyond, according to agency and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. High On Your Own Supply Balancing ad-supported content with potential ad-free subscription offers can be difficult. The Swedish newspaper company Dagens Nyheter did an analytics review of an ad-free subscription business. “We had to calculate the price level and potential risk of making it […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Allison Branton, Head of Advanced TV Data Solutions, AnalyticsIQ. In 2020, nearly every industry was flipped on its head. TV advertising was no exception. The upfronts were cancelled, the streaming wars reached a fever […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Cruella’s Revenge Inflation isn’t only for consumer goods apparently. Disney’s ad sales team has wrapped up its upfront negotiations with double-digit CPM increases, a huge win for the network, Jason Lynch reports for Adweek. Disney CEO Bob Chapek said at a Credit Suisse conference, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Bouncing Back The virtual Upfronts have concluded; the celebrities have bounced; the guest DJs are spinning on Brooklyn rooftops. And the time has come for advertisers to commit. The broadcast industry wants to know whether flashy presentations by Disney, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, WarnerMedia and others […]

WarnerMedia and Discovery held separate Upfront presentations this week, just days after AT&T announced it would combine the media assets of the two companies in a deal worth $43 billion. The move, which shocked the industry – and even the topmost executives at WarnerMedia – could position the new company as a major force in the […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Rob Bochicchio, President of Marketsmith. Coming out from last year’s unpredictable upfront season, the rules have completely changed. The playbook is different. The upending of the norms between TV buyers and sellers still hasn’t […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Upfronts Back In Front Streaming dollars are becoming a key part of upfront negotiations as the market bounces back after a tough 2020. Last year, uncertainty reigned. Sports were on pause and marketers wanted flexibility. But this year, the market is on the rebound […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Roku has a message for TV buyers: traditional linear’s decline continues, with a 39% loss in ratings and a median age creeping over 60. Sure, prices for traditional TV advertising haven’t dipped. But it’s fair to argue that old school programmers are surfing […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Bryon Schafer, SVP of research at Vevo. Today, the media industry faces multidimensional fragmentation, heightened media competition, limited measurement, and rapidly decreasing TV ad supply. Networks have pivoted toward streaming, and the buying community […]