Of all of the posts and alerts that seemed to proliferate from dawn to dusk yesterday regarding the official kickoff to the traditional upfront week in New York, perhaps the most practical–and, indeed, one of the most popular–came from someone who made sure to point out that for anyone from out of town who didn’t otherwise know it that if they happened to be trying to get from the FOX presentation downtown to the Amazon nightcap at the Beacon Theatre to instruct their driver to head north on Tenth Avenue, as opposed to Sixth or Eighth. “You’ll thank me later”, he smugly concluded. I’m not sure what anyone taking an autonomous car might have done; knowing that traffic flow all too well I suspect they might still be en route.
But the fact that that mad rush was occurring as people were about to be regaled by an entity with absolutely no regular schedule to present reinforced that what has been traditionally the rationale for an upfront presentation is pretty much extinct. And Amazon had more than enough star power to make sure that it was worth the effort to schlep, as VARIETY’s Joe Otterson reported last night:
Amazon made their second formal appearance at the upfronts in New York on Monday night, and they definitely pulled out all the stops once again.
Like their 2024 presentation, Amazon made a number of splashy announcements with major star power to rev up excitement in the normally sedate crowd of advertising executives at the storied Beacon Theater in Manhattan.
World famous DJ Steve Aoki opened the show with over half an hour of blasting beats on behalf of Twitch, which was no doubt welcome by weary advertisers who had been making their way around the city to different network presentations since morning. What better than some good EDM to wake you up on a Monday evening, after all?
Not long after, Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista made their way onstage with Lizzo leading the way. Yes, you read that right. Lizzo sang her hit song “About Damn Time,” with Momoa and Bautista remaining onstage afterwards to hype their upcoming action Amazon MGM Studios movie “The Wrecking Crew.” “Spoiler alert: we kick some ass,” Bautista said. “Some of us kick more ass than others,” Momoa quipped.
Other stars onstage included multiple cast members from the “Legally Blonde” prequel “Elle,” followed by Octavia Spencer, Elizabeth Banks, and Jamie Lee Curtis. All three of the latter women have shows in the works at Prime Video. Michael B. Jordan himself then took the stage to unveil a new series set in the “Creed” film universe. Jordan is an executive producer on the project, which is set in the Delphi Gym and will follow young boxers who train there.
But no fall schedule. In fact, a majority of the annoucements didn’t even have launch dates set. Some were just in the “coming soon” realm. And when they did get into the nitty gritty, they were in the form advanced analytics with the spin of a hundred galaxies attached to them. A lot of talk about capabilities of proof of performance attached to Amazon’s ability to provide data on engagement, clickthrough and purchasing, as well as an ecosystem of podcasts that further extend the potential of consumer engagement. As Otterson additionally noted, (t)he first non-celebrity onstage was Tanner Elton, VP of US Ad Sales for Amazon. Elton touted Amazon’s ad supported audience of over 300 million people. “These engagements are meaningful and represent incredible opportunities for brands,” he said.
But not much about how many of them actually watched any of Amazon’s content–even their returning shows or sports franchises. Details like that are seemingly old school–c’mon, don’t you wanna be hanging with the cool kids?
Not that the legacy presenters were providing a lot of substance, either. NBCU kicked things off in the morning with a plea for sympathy straight from the host’s mouth in a most unusual place, as THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Mikey O’Connell detailed:
An unexpected dose of charm came from Mark Marshall. Shticks from the in-house ad execs are normally a low point of upfront week, but Marshall’s pre-taped bit inserting himself into various NBCU properties before descending to the stage in a replica of Ariana Grande’s bubble from Wicked was a true joy. “I just want you to think, over the next couple of weeks when you’re allocating your ad dollars, there was only one ad chief that was in the rafters of Radio City risking his own life,” Marshall said, moments after taking off a sequined pink blazer. “So you decide where the money should go.” (Linda Yaccarino could never.)
But when it came down to details, the laughs were minimal and the specifics underwhelming. A fall where only one new series, a reality ripoff of SHARK TANK specifically focusing on brands from in-house unscripted czar Jimmy Fallon, was debuting and a mere seven scripted series on NBC at all. And even those that were showing up on avails apparently got short shrift:
Marshall attempted to clear up any lingering confusion about the who’s selling ads for newly launched spin-co Versant. “One platform is alive and well,” he said, confirming that the same team was still selling across its portfolio — even if USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Syfy and E! were technically leaving the fold.
Versant was the elephant in the room — both the butt of the joke for Seth Meyers when he came out on stage for his annual jokes and a source of confusion when John Slattery previewed the trailer for his John Grisham adaptation, The Rainmaker. It’s “one of many shows coming to Versant this year,” he said. The show, in fact, is coming to USA. Long the crown jewel of basic cable, it’s apparently no longer worth mentioning by name.
And if you were expecting anything more substantial from the one seemingly still committed to old school distribution, one couldn’t help but practically see O’Connell’s eye rolls in the report she filed about the presentation she apparently took a free-flowing route to:
In some respects, Fox delivered the most traditional upfront presentation anybody is likely to see this week. Executives and talent kept the focus on live sports and news, all of the men wore suits and there was nary a mention of a subscription service. Even if they have one.
In other respects, the Monday afternoon program was a postmodern odyssey — as evidenced by 95-year-old Rupert Murdoch, seated in the fourth row with son Lachlan and members of the proletariat, nodding his head along to Jay Z’s “Public Service Announcement” as Jamie Foxx came on stage to deliver an impression of President Donald Trump mispronouncing “Tesla.”
“[We have] a long history of contrarian thinking,” said Fox Corp president of advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships Jeff Collins, quick to plug several stats du jour. Among the more appealing was that 24 percent of commercial time airing programs with over 1 million viewers is on Fox. And you may take a moment to work that one out before you read on.
Well, I did, Mikey. What that seems to be saying is that if you want your spot to air somewhere where there’s enough scale to matter, more than three-quarters of the options at your disposal are somewhere else. And not a lot of clarity as to if those viewers are watching Tom Brady or Sean Hannity, let alone an episode of DOC, and whether they’re closer in age to Brady or Murdoch.
I suppose when one of the bigger news items on your fall schedule is the pickup of a new cycle of WEAKEST LINK. now exclusively being played by celebrities, away from an NBC where it recently delivered a 0.3 demo rating with a VOICE lead-in, and now will be going head-to-head with it (not to mention MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL), you’ve got no choice but to deflect. (Full disclosure: I’m rooting for it, as I personally know the showrunner, but I’m far too much of a realist to think he was dealt a winning hand to play).
And if the early reports from this morning’s Disney presentation that TV TATTLE’s Norman Weiss just dropped, there wasn’t much more excitement about this fall provided even today. In fact, he noted that the architect was practically dismissing it as a speed bump:
The schedule ABC is rolling out for the start of the 2025-26 season looks very similar to the one it had in 2024-25,” says The Hollywood Reporter’s Rick Porter. “The network has made a couple of moves — 9-1-1 spinoff 9-1-1: Nashville joins the Thursday lineup, and Shark Tank is going from Friday to Wednesday nights — but ABC has opted for a mostly stable lineup. 9-1-1: Nashville is the only new series on the fall slate.” As Disney Television Group president Craig Erwich explained: “We have been successfully launching shows and returning shows to the schedule, so we don’t need to make a lot of moves. We have an ability here to focus on one or two shows and really point the audience toward what’s important to us and what we think is worth their time.”
This from the head of the network that finished in third place among broadcasters–even with Monday Night Football– and with a whopping 30 per cent of the top 20 non-sports programs among them. Yep, running it back was certainly the right call.
The collective message is loud and clear both to advertisers and broadcasters: we’re in no rush to do anything that might coincide with your natural selling cycles or the buying habits of most of our viewers. But you just wait until those PUT levels go up and then we’ll have a whole lot of stuff for all of those bigger ticket items to consider.
In which case, we can afford to take the scenic route back. Tenth Avenue is a little spartan-looking compared to midtown anyhow.
Until next time…