“There are some clients who are like, ‘What’s this going to do to pricing?’ Look, pricing in sports is going up anyway,” the third buyer said, noting women’s sports will likely see increases. “You’re gonna pay more for NBA, more for NFL, more for college football, so there will be a negotiation.”
The battle for streaming
Regarding this year’s upfront, “sports is a battleground, and streaming is a battleground,” the second buyer said.
With an increase in ad supply and upfront budgets shrinking, publishers will have to impress buyers with everything they’re bringing to the table, including their content, data offerings and even whether programming will likely be seen on a big or small screen.
For all publishers trying to secure TV ad budgets, it boils down to a pricing and flexibility discussion, according to buyers.
“They all have streaming offerings, and they all have data,” a fifth buyer said. “They have to change and adapt to what clients want.”
The buzzword this year is modality. Buyers want to buy in any way they want, having the flexibility to move spend across channels or programmatically. And though traditional publishers still have scale, they don’t necessarily have the elasticity that buyers are looking for.
“The biggest struggle with the upfront is that traditional media sellers are still not able to work in a modern world,” a sixth buyer said. “They still count on four quarters of forecasts and have these stringent rules around what they’re willing to do from a flexibility standpoint, whereas digital entrants and streaming native companies already understand that the world has changed and have very quick cancellation.”
According to IAB’s 2024 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report, digital video spend will pass linear for the first time this year, with the market becoming 52% digital vs. 48% linear. However, buyers aren’t counting linear out quite yet. After all, the majority of the viewing of Paramount’s recent record-breaking Super Bowl came on linear.
“Despite all the talk about streaming, linear still has a higher percentage of usage when you think about the big screen,” the sixth buyer said.
Will measurement measure up?
Media buyers told ADWEEK that alternative currencies and measurement have led to a series of false starts over the last few years, with companies promising certain capabilities and not living up to those promises.
When it comes to announcements from measurement companies and agencies, one buyer put it succinctly: “99.9% of it turned out to be bullshit.”
However, Nielsen has officially announced that it’s ready to roll out its panel plus big data measurement in the fall. And though some still have trepidation, buyers and publishers noted this year will likely see a mix of panel-only as well as a combination of panel data and big data for currency.