upfronts 2025

NBCU’s streaming losses were down to $100 million in Q2 from $348 million year-over-year, representing significant progress as the platform nears break-even.

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.

The alternative currency bucket could use a rebrand. That referential and somewhat deferential phraseology – a reference to Nielsen – drives Peter Liguori, VideoAmp’s executive chairman, a little nuts. It stems, he argues, from the “absurd notion” that the TV industry “has almost 100% of its eggs in one basket.”

Now that all the dust and confetti has settled after the upfronts, negotiations between marketers, agencies, networks and streamers are only just getting started.

Amid the glitz of TV upfront presentations, advertising executives take the stage to talk about things like new audience targeting capabilities or to ballyhoo new ad measurement partnerships. How, though, are we supposed to focus on brand lift statistics when we can all hear Lady Gaga belting a vocal warmup offstage?

If Netflix’s most recent upfront presentation is any indication, the third time must be the charm.

At Warner Bros. Discovery’s upfront presentation in New York City on Wednesday, Ad Sales co-presidents Ryan Gould and Bobby Voltaggio announced the launch of not one but two ad solutions: NEO and DemoDirect.

Ever since 2020, TV upfront rates have declined; inconsistent metrics mean inaccurate results; plus, Roblox is touting its strong hold on its viewers’ (er, gamers’) attention.

Contextually relevant pause ads were just one of three new formats that Amazon unveiled in advance of its upfronts presentation on Monday.

According to Google, DV360 now reaches 98% of CTV households in the US and represents 5 billion hours of ad-supported watch time per month – roughly 40% more than The Trade Desk and 90% more than Amazon’s DSP.

Do Google AI Overviews really bring exposure to more websites?; Meta considered an all-ad Instagram feed; and agencies are cautiously optimistic even as tariff concerns threaten upfronts season.

At VideoAmp’s “Vampfront” presentation on Tuesday, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my favorite pop culture vampire stories (in a good way).