Upfront TV Ad Prognosis? Slow-Moving, On A Questionable Front

Weakness in the upfront marketplace appears a foregone conclusion for legacy and digital-first platforms. So what happens after that?

A strong scatter market? In the old days, that would have been the result. But nowadays? There are a lot more complications in play.

Looking on a granular level, TV ad …

ad inventory, advertising, economy, forecast, media buying, streaming, television

1 comment about "Upfront TV Ad Prognosis? Slow-Moving, On A Questionable Front".

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, July 2, 2024 at 11:31 a.m.
Wayne, national TV ad spend for the broadcast TV networks, cable channels and national syndicators totals about $40-42 billion. If prime time upfront on the broadcast TV networks and cable channels works out to about $18 billion, that's not the only upfront buying that goes on for linear TV. At least $10 bilion will be spent for early AM, daytime, news and late night TV GRPs from the broadcast TV nets and cable as well as more for national Syndication--"Wheel Of Fortune" , "Jeopardy", etc. So the total upfront, across all sellers and dayparts for linear TV is more like $30 billion. How doe these folks come up with a linear TV "scatter" spend of $20 billion? Same question for streaming. Most estimates have streaming ad spend at $24 billion or thereabouts--a few a bit lower, a few a bit higher. Yet we are told that national TV ad spend for streaming will be $18 billion upfront and $10 billion for scatter. That doesn't compute as there are other kinds of advertisers using streaming besides traditional national TV buyers.
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