Networks face struggle for ad dollars ahead of upfronts week

With this year’s upfronts week just days away, US networks are facing probably their toughest fight yet to secure advertisers’ dollars.

TV upfronts – presentations made by the networks to showcase upcoming content to advertisers – is the time for networks lay out their wares in the fight for advertising dollars. 

The pandemic radically altered the way content is consumed by viewers, with linear TV seeing an increasing number of its viewers moving over to streaming services, many of which are ad-supported, such as Hulu, Peacock, Discovery Plus, Tubi, Pluto TV and Paramount Plus. 

The offers

• Trust: In a blog post, NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino, chairman, global advertising and partnerships, is urging advertisers to look beyond the past year and merely dollars and consider the importance of trust in marketing partnerships. 
• Brand safety: Fox News is seeking to remove some of the risk advertisers always face when selecting a news network to carry their ads because their message can easily seem massively insensitive or inappropriate when running alongside tragedy or controversy. Fox is aiming to introduce more optimistic, positive and “uplifting” content, such as “America Together”, which features inspiring stories to offer advertisers more predictable and secure context.

Background

Meanwhile, networks are reeling after TV audience measurement giant Nielsen owned up to a mistake that could mean the loss of millions of advertising dollars for them. Nielsen says it probably undercounted some TV audiences during the pandemic. 

The Media Rating Council said it had found an underestimation of viewers in the most desirable age bracket for advertisers in February this year of between 2% and 6%, raising question marks over Nielsen’s measurement model. It stopped sending agents to homes during the pandemic. It is estimated that a 1% undercount in February could represent $39 million in ad revenue, while 6% could be as much as $234 million. Over 12 months, those figures would turn into between $468 million and $2.8 billion.

Key quote

“We need to see eye-to-eye on what makes a trusted partnership—because the success of our shared recovery hangs in the balance. “All too often, partnerships are grounded only in value you can measure rather than the values you share. And those types of shallow relationships limit our progress because they are not sustainable or effective” – Linda Yaccarino, chairman, global advertising and partnerships, NBCUniversal Media

Sourced from Adweek, Adage