Here's What Buyers Really Thought About the 2023 Upfront

After years of CPMs rising while linear ratings declined, TV advertising was due for a course correction. That's what happened during the 2023-2024 upfront season. This year's upfront was already expected to be a buyer's market, with advertisers holding back dollars due to an uncertain economy and the ongoing erosion of linear TV. However, the market was even softer than anticipated, according to several buyers familiar with negotiations. "Outside of sports, it was essentially a rollback marketplace across the board," one buyer told us, speaking anonymously. Falling CPMs and Demand Produce Slowest-Moving Upfront Market in Years This year's talks were a completely different story than the 2022-2023 upfront negotiations, where publishers regularly announced historic highs in advertiser commitments. Last year, Disney reported $9 billion in commitments—its strongest upfront ever—and NBCUniversal added $7 billion to its tally. But rather than build on those historic highs, publishers learned they had to adopt a different strategy for 2023-2024. "It was a true masterclass in supply and demand this year," a second buyer said. "Because once the broadcasters and the content creators realized that the money wasn't going to happen, it became more of a story of share of voice—me vs. my neighbor—instead of, 'I want to compare myself to what I got last year.'" In lieu of new records, publishers regularly said advertiser commitments were on par with the previous year, with Kevin Lansberry, Disney's interim CFO, saying on an earnings call that overall volume was "roughly in line with the prior year" and Nexstar CEO Perry Sook reporting that dollar volume was “basically flat” for The CW. It's a much more complicated market than it used to be.Anonymous media buyer Price decreases varied across the board, but buyers told Adweek that CPMs (cost per thousand viewers reached) generally had around 5% in rollbacks, with streamers reaching up to double digits after starting out with sky-high pricing at their ad tier launches. For media buyers, this year's market was an opportunity to reframe the thinking around the upfront, which is traditionally thought of as broadcast and cable-driven. "Streaming and sports make up at least 50% of [spend], probably more at this point. Sports was healthy. Then streaming has its own dynamic—dollars were up, but they weren't up anywhere near as much as any of the network groups wanted them," the first buyer said, adding, "It's a much more complicated market than it used to be." And a more complicated market brings more complicated deals. The longest upfront in years To say the 2023-2024 upfront market moved at a snail's pace would be an insult to snails, as a process regularly completed as early as mid-June bled into mid-August. "Long, long, long—that's the biggest takeaway. It's been a while since we've had a market that's softer," a third buyer noted. "It's been an almost fun marketplace to be in if it didn't go so long." However, not everyone minded the extra time. Though some deals were struck early, advertisers were in no rush to put money down, which was also an advantage for buyers poring over today's more complex deals. "I didn't hate the pace of it," a fourth buyer said. Though the buyer acknowledged that some advertisers may have to rush to get campaigns on air, they noted that this year's upfront was "one of the few in a while where we actually had time to sit and think and really prepare, get every duck in a row and be thoughtful about who, what and where." Once publishers accepted that it was a buyer's market, negotiations seemingly went off without a hitch, unlike last year. Media Plan of the Year 2023: These Winning Strategies Helped Brands Reach New Markets No WBD debacle In 2022, Warner Media and Discovery completed a $43 billion merger only weeks ahead of upfront week presentations, having the task of combining two different sales teams and leading to what buyers told us was a "frustrating" negotiation. "The bottom line is we did not have enough time last year to be able to put the right strategy together knowing what the histories were with each of these companies, and we did the best we could," Jon Steinlauf, Warner Bros. Discovery's ad sales chief, told Adweek in May. He said negotiations would be different this time around, and by all accounts, they were. Buyers told Adweek that, other than the long negotiations, things went smoothly with all the major upfront partners. Buyers also praised Netflix's leadership team in the company's first upfront negotiations. Ahead of hiring Jeremi Gorman as president of worldwide advertising and Peter Naylor as vp of global ad sales, the company launched an ad-supported tier with its partner, Microsoft, heavily involved in the sales side of things. Now that there's new leadership in place, negotiations with Netflix were "100 times better," according to the fourth buyer. "I don't think they got the takeaway they wanted. They'll get there. They still have some growing to do, which is fine," the fourth buyer said. "There's definitely room for them in the marketplace." Details on the deals With Nielsen sunsetting C3 and C7 in the fall of 2024, the only currencies on the market will be new currencies. However, several buyers told Adweek that measurement and alternative currencies weren't as prominent as they would've wanted. Or, as one buyer put it, measurement was a "nothing burger." "I wish there were some new currencies that actually could deliver on what they said they were going to be able to do, whether that's Nielsen, who over-promised and under-delivered once again," a fifth buyer said. "But you know, the iSpots and VideoAmps aren't ready for primetime either." Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, marketers pushed for flexibility in the upfront, and that flexibility was equally important this year as the ongoing writers and actors strikes leave uncertainty around fall TV and beyond. The 2022 Upfronts Need to Evolve Into the FlexFronts "That flexibility is really a marketer's flexibility that they probably didn't have two or three years ago that they clearly have now and will have in the future," the fifth buyer said, with a sixth buyer adding that this year's deals brought even "more transparency" to publisher plans, giving marketers better insight into whether they needed to move money around or not. Buyers told Adweek that some clients holding back money from the upfront could enter the linear scatter market if the pricing is soft; however, there weren't high hopes. After all, there are so many options that advertisers don't need to pay a premium for primetime—now or perhaps into the future. "We've seen prime dollars come down year over year. We'll see that continue," the third buyer said. "If people can find other places where those dollars are working for them and not quite that cost, they're not going to go back."

TV Upfronts

Here's What Buyers Really Thought About the 2023 Upfront

Outside of sports, there were rollbacks across the board as advertisers reframe the marketplace

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