Madison Avenue continues to pull millions of dollars out of what was once its star vehicle — primetime TV — in favor of reaching smaller crowds of consumers watching their favorite shows at times of their own choosing.
Even the wider availability of sports telecasts in primetime could not keep advertising commitments to linear broadcast and cable TV from falling once again, while the amount of ad money flowing into streaming rose anew, according to Media Dynamics, a consultancy that tracks spending during the TV industry’s annual “upfront,” a time when TV networks try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory ahead of their next cycle of original programming,
Dollars committed to broadcast primetime fell 2.5% to about $9.1 billion, according to Media Dynamics, compared with $9.34 billion in the year-earlier period. Dollars committed to cable fell 4.3% to nearly $8.68 billion, compared with nearly $9.1 billion last year. Meanwhile, dollars earmarked for streaming rose 17.9%, Media Dynamics said, to $13.2 billion, compared with $11.2 billion in the 2024 upfront.
Overall ad commitments rose — thanks to streaming. The total value of upfront commitments rose 5%, to nearly $31 billion. In 2024, total commitments totaled $29.5 billion, marking an increase of 8.1%.
And advertisers again committed a greater amount of money to streaming than they did to either broadcast or cable primetime, for the second consecutive year.
The figures suggest ad dollars are harder to snare across the board. Advertisers greeted the start of the 2025 upfront ad market with trepidation, worrying about the effects of the Trump administration’s tariffs on consumers’ willingness to spend — and advertisers ability to spend money to catch their attention. But the stock market remained steady during the industry’s annual haggle, and those companies with major sporting events appeared to thrive.
NBCUniversal said it enjoyed a “record” upfront haul, buoyed not only by scheduled broadcasts of the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics in 2025, but also by Spanish-language rights to the FIFA World Cup and a new 11-year pact with the NBA that will put basketball on NBC twice a week in primetime. Fox, too, benefitted from having sports to sell, including English-language World Cup rights. Sales executives and media buyers noted that NFL games were a hot commodity during negotiations, with some advertisers clamoring for more time after it had already been sold.
NBCU is said to be largely sold out of most of its inventory tied to Super Bowl LIX, with the company seeking at least $7 million for a 30-second ad, and even $8 million as demand came in more robustly than expected.
Other media companies, however, saw less heightened demand. Paramount Global, Disney and TelevisaUnivision indicated upfront sales were “flat,” or the same as they had notched in 2024. Warner Bros. Discovery declined to give any indications about how much sales volume it secured in the upfront — typically an indication that it lost dollars compared with 2024, when it enjoyed its last year of long association with the NBA. Games previously shown on Warner’s TNT will move in the fall to NBCUniversal and Amazon’s Prime Video.
To grab more money overall, the networks had to cut rates in some cases — known in the industry as a “rollback” and often a maneuver of last resort. Still, the rate reversals were not as bad as they were last year.
The cost of reaching 1,000 viewers, a measure known as a CPM that is central to the annual upfront talks between TV networks and Madison Avenue, fell to $43.50 for broadcast and $19.35 for cable, marking declines of 4.1% and 6.1%, respectively, according to Media Dynamics. Meanwhile, the average CPM for a 30-second ad tied to streaming fell by 7.6% — a nod, yet again, to the increasing amount of digital inventory that has hit the market as Netflix and Amazon have launched ad-supported tiers and as many other media companies launch new free, ad-supported channels.
Things could have been worse. “Several networks benefited by offering attractive sports packages and when these are prorated to account for the portions that take place in primetime, this mitigates softening demand for time in the sellers’ entertainment and newsmagazine fare,” Media Dynamics said in a statement. Whether the market will improve next year remains to be seen.
variety.com
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