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Upfronts Kick Off: Hollywood's Ad Dollar Scramble Arrives in Strangest Market in Years
The 2025 upfronts kick off in New York City on Monday, with entertainment giants like NBCUniversal, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery pitching their wares, even as digital-first interlopers like Amazon, Netflix and YouTube have butted their way into the week.
While the upfronts used to about broadcast networks unveiling their fall schedules, the events have morphed into a celebration of corporate synergy. Last year, for example, NBCUniversal used the event to premiere the trailer for the film Wicked.
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'That was something that was not what we were doing years ago. It was cool. It was very cool,' says Mark Marshall, NBCUniversal's chairman of ad sales. This year, don't be surprised if the company's new Orlando theme park Epic Universe gets a mention, or perhaps Disney's new project in Abu Dhabi.
But this year's upfronts also come amid what seems like a period of never-ending turmoil, ever since the COVID-19 pandemic turned the advertising world upside down back in 2020.
'We've had five years of uncertainty, whether it was supply chain or tariffs,' Marshall says.
As both Ryan Gould and Robert 'Bobby' Voltaggio agreed, it is a 'strange' year. Every corporate earnings call is talking about tariffs, the macroeconomic environment, recession fears and other issues, but it just isn't being reflected in the talks media companies are having with marketers.
'The sentiment doesn't match the data,' Gould says. 'We're not seeing it in the numbers, and speaking to our peers and getting a read on where the marketplace is, I think that that's a unanimous POV.'
Indeed, a top media buyer says that their clients are still committing to the upfronts, despite not knowing for sure what the economy will look later in the year. Instead, they are looking to cut deals that can be adapted on the fly, in the event tariffs skyrocket, or plummet, or another wrench gets thrown in the gears of their business.
'We're negotiating the maximum of flexibility terms, coming in with budgets that we think are realistic,' the buyer said.
Indeed, 'flexibility' seems to be the word of the year. Every single ad sales executive The Hollywood Reporter spoke to said that they are approaching this year's negotiations with flexibility in mind, cognizant of the unsettled economic moment.
Just look at the tariffs, which caused trade between the U.S. and China to grind to a halt over the last month, though a 90-day reprieve announced Monday will likely get the boats moving again, albeit at a higher cost than before.
The result are talks that could see marketers move spend between linear and digital/CTV, shifting spend across genres or programming, or even a break-glass option if they need to pull back later.
'We're in a market where our clients and our agency partners are trying to figure it out, right?, and the POV that they had two days ago probably doesn't match the POV that they have today,' Gould says. 'The one thing that I think is going to be most important this year, in this upfront cycle, is a consultative approach. So we really want to portray that we're putting the customers and our clients front and center. We're having a lot of conversations around flexibility and the opportunity to weave brands into the fabric of not only our platforms, but also our IP.'
'The themes that we are hearing fairly consistently do revolve around uncertainty,' says Paramount ad sales chief John Halley. 'Advertisers, brands, agency partners, are in a landscape that's defined by tariff fluctuations and inflation, regulatory uncertainty, shifting go-to-market timelines. That is a lot to navigate as we come to this current upfront period.'
'At the end of the day, in economies like the one of today, which I would say is best described as uncertain, I think a lot of brands are in the process of planning for multiple scenarios and understanding that they still have to generate sales volume and make sure that their brands are front and center in the mind of a consumer that is much more thoughtful about how they're spending money,' Disney's ad sales chief Rita Ferro says.
Indeed, despite the uncertainty, every company is happy to highlight their silver linings. That seems to be taking the form of three distinct areas: Live sports and tentpoles, top-shelf entertainment fare, and ad tech that improves automation and targeting.
'We just have best in class IP, we have culture creating, culture setting IP like The Last of Us, The Pitt, March Madness, or theatricals like A Minecraft Movie,' Voltaggio says. 'We want to couple that with best in class precision and targeting to really allow for the accessibility of those audiences to our clients. Our content is seen by 85 percent of all adults on a monthly basis in the US, and we certainly want to maximize that power and breadth of our portfolio for our client base.'
'I feel like a company like Disney with the position that we have around the things that resonates with consumers and where consumers are spending time: Sports, scaled streaming and live entertainment, we are a consistent and long-term partner for many brands,' Ferro says. 'We've been in the business for decades and we've been investing in and have the technology that allows them to do the things that they want to do, and deliver on the measurement side to prove that it's working in ways that differentiates us from other other platforms that week.'
'We are specialists in creating culturally defining moments, and not just moments, but entire universes. Yellowstone, Survivor, these franchises like The Daily Show and South Park, it's not just about reach, it's about depth and engagement,' Halley says. 'There's a clear focus on sports and tentpoles, which deliver cultural experiences, premium entertainment formats, but as you know, advertisers are scrutinizing every dollar, and they're demanding measurable impact, and the impetus is on us to to provide that,' he adds. 'You know it, we know it. This is an environment where you've got to be able to prove what you're saying.'
Those tentpoles probably require a deeper dive, because if there is likely to be one takeaway from this week, it would be this: Every major entertainment company, be they streaming or linear or both, will lean hard on live sports and tentpole events.
Why? They command the attention of consumers, the highest rates from advertisers, and simply have the most demand. And given the overall market, media companies believe that putting sports and tentpoles at the center of their sales pitch can help the overall bundle of assets they are selling.
'For clients that are thinking about spending less in the upfront, its basically because they have found that they can get whatever they want in scatter [the market where buyers buy spots much closer to their run date] and not commit to the pricing upfront,' the media buyer says. 'In the really highly coveted opportunities, like sports and tentpoles, where it's highly coveted inventory, that price will continue to either hold or increase, and clients are not going to be able to come in scatter and get that same inventory. But basically, for everything else you can play the scatter game and hedge it, and you're probably okay, right?'
Hence why WBD will likely tee up March Madness and the French Open, even after losing the NBA game rights; why Disney will center ESPN and its massive sports slate, as well as live events like the Oscars and Grammys; why Netflix will underscore its live event strategy; YouTube its NFL Sunday Ticket deal; Amazon its new NBA rights package; and Paramount will be sure to note its football prowess.
And NBCUniversal will begin selling a 2026 that kicks off with the Super Bowl, the 2026 Winter Olympics from Italy, major college football games, and the return of the NBA on NBC.
'The fact is that this will be the greatest single year of content that any single media company has ever had,' Marshall boasts.
Of course Disney is already salivating over 2027, when it will have the College Football Championship, the Grammys, the Super Bowl and the Oscars all within a three month window, as well as the NBA.
It's a sign of the times for the entertainment business. Consumers are still watching comedies, dramas and unscripted fare, but with that viewership on demand and increasingly streaming, that content is being sold more programmatically.
The big tentpole events (or events that companies hope to turn into tentpoles) are turning into the centerpieces of the advertising pitch, the can't miss thing that brings in the big commitments and forms a support structure for the rest of the business.
The question in the current moment is to what extent CMOs buy in, or how many hold their breath and hope for deals down the line.
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