There was a time when upfront week was practically Christmas in May. I didn’t get to attend many of them, but considering how much work and overtime I put into even the ones I supported the week was a continuous array of catered meetings and persistent updates as networks announced their fall lineups and series orders. When I was working the studio side, every mention of one of “our” shows was met with sincere pride and a sense of accomplishment–“we” crashed the party successfully. And even the war stories from those that did get to schmooze and belly up to multiple bars with the frenzied schedules that back-to-back (and sometimes an additional to-back) presentations, happy hours and nightcaps would present, the endless aggravations with car services and heaven forbid if it actually rained were often even more entertaining than the presentations themselves.
But as time has worn on and my own presence has gotten all the more detached, the anticipation and excitement I once felt is all the more in the rearview mirror. And even those who still have justified reasons for attending seem to have become more jaundiced and business-like. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Alex Weprin has been to more than a few of his own, so the preview he dropped yesterday was understandably nostalgic and even a bit lamenting:
(T)he days when the TV upfronts would culminate with a broadcast network revealing their fall schedule is long gone. In its place are star-studded celebrations of corporate synergy, with movies, TV shows, streaming originals, sports, news and even theme parks all getting time in increasingly condensed presentation to CMOs, media buyers and other Madison Avenue power players.
(D)espite geopolitical tensions, this year’s ad market sounds … unaffected, at least for now. “Yes, there’s a lot of noise, but I still think marketers are spending money,” one ad sales chief says…”I wouldn’t say it’s a bull market, but it’s definitely not a bear market,” another ad sales chief says. “There is a little bit of cautiousness as it relates to the macroeconomic climate, the general economy, interest rates, so on and so forth. And then I do think that the geopolitical stuff is top of mind for a lot of people, but it hasn’t transpired or translated into any meaningful deviations.”
DEADLINE’s Dade Hayes added a bit more upbeat trumpeting in the preview he dropped last Friday:
Advertiser sentiment, by and large, remains upbeat. Ad tracking firm iSpot surveyed 360 brand marketers ahead of the upfront and found that 31% of them plan to hold spending steady or increase it in the upfront. Half of them are looking to step up in social video and streaming. While the positive momentum is less pronounced than it was heading into the 2025 cycle, budgets are still “increasingly concentrated in channels that offer the highest degree of accountability,” the iSpot report noted.
With that sort of framing it made the more traditional presence of NBCUniversal kicking off the week with the Monday morning lid-lifter seem more of a throwback than ever. They actually announced a lineup and a strategy, most notably on Monday nights where the renewed ST. DENIS MEDICAL and THE FALL AND RISE OF REGGIE DINKINS will actually provide a comedy presence that as we noted yesterday CBS is now fully eschewing. You’ll have to wait for the November sweeps for that though–THE VOICE will launch with a batch of two-hour episodes that will mean it will occupy the same amount of real estate as scripted dramas based in Chicago. And there will actually be two coattails newbies that emerged from a real competition among pilots–the intense and compelling family drama LINE OF FIRE and the clearly Gen X-baiting NEWLYWEDS, which will star real-life couple Téa Leoni and Tim Daly, who find love after a whirlwind courtship. On the January schedule is a “reimagining” of the Friday night 70s stalwart THE ROCKFORD FILES, now featuring David Boreanaz as the houseboat-residing private investigator, but now repositioned to 8 pm Thursday–I guess because that audience goes to bed a lot earlier nowadays?
And if that seemed underwhelming the afternoon session FOX threw could easily have been seen as even more of a shrug to the demands of the modern buyer. As DEADLINE’s intrepid Nellie Andreeva reported yesterday, even their top braintrust was anything but bullish on what used to be a staple for them:
Fox is down to one live-action comedy series next season, Animal Control, starring Joel McHale, after cancelling sophomore Going Dutch. While a couple of half-hour projects, including Mammoth, Thunderjacks, King Gary and an Andrea Savage show, had been heating up at the network over the past few of weeks, Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade and Fox Television Network President Michael Thorn indicated that they are hitting pause on live-action comedy greenlights until they come up with a business model that works for a linear network.
Recently, I’ve been hearing chatter that Fox has been floating a $1.6M per episode price tag for live-action comedies. According to sources, the network has not yet settled on a number as the process of hammering out a financial framework is ongoing. And it likely won’t be one license fee but multiple tiers — and models — as is the case with dramas.
So the lineup they presented is chock full of unscripted fare once again–not to mention two full nights dedicated to college football and anything else it can get rights to in the live sports space. And no less than TEN more unscripted series waiting in the wings for when football isn’t in season to prop things up.
The huddled masses get a reasonably free morning to sober up–Disney doesn’t present until 4 pm, and with all due respect Televisa Univision isn’t gonna make a lot of mainstream headlines. But notably tonight’s evening session will be a YouTube creator event, and tomorrow night’s will be a YouTube brandcast. That’s on the heels of Amazon owning the evening slot last night. I suppose that’s because those that will be most excited and agog with the red carpet attendees are of a generation that does stay up past THE ROCKFORD FILES’ sign-off.
Mind you, I’m not knocking this one bit. If anything, it should be a reminder to “traditional media” of the intentions and priorities Hayes outlined. And even something as old school as Nielsen confirms that YouTube has earned the right to own the night and, in all likelihood, the narrative. And, I suspect, a greater share of the $17.8 billion (per Media Dynamics) that is expected to be spent on traditional media to buttress the estimated $80 billion (per IAB) that digital already garners.
My sage advice: When Jim Rockford turns up in a two-minute microdrama in vertical video mode, maybe I’ll once again get as excited as I once was for upfronts. Especially if someone offers cold brew and microdosing as an alternative to alcohol.
Until next time…