“Everybody knew that digital dollars were going to be like crack cocaine,” a second buyer said. “It’s what everybody wanted.”
Plus, according to the buyer, “Amazon changed the game” by launching its ad tier in January, bringing immediate access to around 115 million subscribers.
Buyers said streaming saw extreme CPM discounts, ranging anywhere from the mid-teens to 45%, depending on where the pricing started.
For instance, when Netflix launched its ad tier around two years ago, it was seeking CPMs of roughly $65. This time around, the streamer’s numbers were below $30.
To put things in context, a third buyer compared this year’s streamer pricing to hotel chains.
“[CPMs for] the Four Seasons of streamers, call it high $20s, low $30s CPM. And then you’ve got W Hotel-like streamers; they’re in that lower to mid-$20,” the buyer said. “Then you got your Courtyard streamers, which I think of Tubi and Hulu and others, that are competing with cable pricing.”
Sports leads the way
Besides streaming, the marketplace was dominated by sports, where the majority of the early deals took place. Buyers told ADWEEK that sports CPMs were up mid- to high-single-digits, and linear would have been drastically down if not for sports propping it up.
The National Football League and college football were, as always, sought-after properties.
According to multiple buyers, Amazon’s Thursday Night Football was more than 90% sold out, and Fox’s upcoming Super Bowl was also around 90% sold.
Plus, if clients didn’t get in on sports early, they were paying premiums in scatter, which buyers said could be as high as 20%.
From Sports Innovation Lab hosting a women’s sports-focused NewFront to GroupM making a pledge to double its media investment in women’s sports, it wasn’t only the men set to benefit this upfront season.
Scripps recently told ADWEEK it saw “overwhelming” demand for its offerings of the Women’s National Basketball Association and National Women’s Soccer League on ION. Meanwhile, buyers said there was more client enthusiasm around women’s sports, but there’s still room to grow.
“I don’t think it was a huge step or change yet this year still, but we definitely saw interest from clients that hadn’t previously invested in women’s sports adding that to their buys,” the first buyer said.
The behind-the-scenes shakeups didn’t affect the upfront … yet
Between big names such as Paramount Global’s former CEO Bob Bakish and Netflix’s former vice president of ad sales Peter Naylor exiting their companies amid upfront talks, Paramount being involved in an ongoing merger with Skydance Media, and Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount each taking multibillion-dollar write-downs from their depreciating linear businesses, it was an eventful upfront season.