Fox said it has completed its upfront, managing increases in dollar volume for its linear and digital properties in what was expected to be a difficult market for legacy networks.
“Our focused portfolio of market-leading properties in sports, news, entertainment and streaming delivered year-over-year growth in both linear and digital advertising commitments as well as growth in overall portfolio pricing in this year’s upfront,” Fox president, advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships Jeff Collins said in a statement.
“Notably, we saw rapidly accelerating double-digit volume growth on Tubi, which is testament to its incredible momentum in the streaming marketplace,” Collins added.
Demand was strong enough that Fox elected to sell more inventory in the upfront than in past years, rather than take a chance on pricing in the scatter market, which has been weak the past few years, sources familiar with the situation said.
This was the first upfront for Collins, who succeeded Marianne Gambelli as head of Fox ad sales earlier this year.
Fortunately for Collins, Fox’s portfolio does not include cable entertainment networks. With cord-cutting reducing viewership and programmers moving original programming from their cable networks to their streaming platforms, demand was down.
What ad buyers wanted was live programming — sports and news — and Fox has tons of that.
Buyers said demand was up for NFL games, where Fox generates the highest ratings on Sunday afternoons/ Fox also has college football, with its Saturday-afternoon games being joined by a package of Friday-night games this season.
In February Fox will air the Super Bowl, the biggest advertising event of the year. Buyers said Fox was hoping to be substantially sold out by the beginning of September, with prices ranging as high as $7.2 million for a 30-second spot.
Broadcast primetime volume on Fox was surprisingly strong, especially compared to cable’s problems.
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With the recent wild political news, viewing of Fox News Channel was way up in July, which fueled ad demand. Fox has sold election packages for advertisers that are not shy about having their commercials appear in political coverage. Other advertisers have opted to either wait to start their flights after the election is over or to appear in the more lifestyle-oriented programming running on Fox News.
Fox’s Tubi streaming platform managed to score increased ad commitments despite heightened competition in streaming caused by the entrance of Amazon Prime Video into the market, individuals familiar with the situation said..
While a flood of inventory from Prime Video threatened to depress price in the market, Tubi’s volume continued to increase commensurate with its continuing double-digit viewership growth.
Also on the digital side, Fox’s new offering that lets advertisers buy audiences across Fox properties saw significant growth, according to Collins. OneFox “delivered a 3 times increase in volume over last year,” he said.
Earlier this month, NBCUniversal said it had finished its upfront, registering an increase in volume across broadcast, cable and streaming.
NBCU said that sports was a strong seller, along with Peacock and its digital platforms.
Buyers said that advertisers were looking for flexibility from the networks.
“It’s not like the old days when we had to rush to get our money down on programming,” one media agency executive said. “With so many options out there, there are new ways to reach customers.”
While the supply of entertainment inventory was high, ad dollars were chasing sports.
The lack of urgency meant the framework for deals was reached weeks ago, but both sides had time to iron out details — which should work out better for the advertisers.
Despite an increase in programmatic buying, the upfront will remain an important part of the TV buying process.
“The legacy media networks still want to count their dollars and get that down in May and June, so I don’t think it will go away completely,” the agency executives said. “But people are more active throughout the year because they want more flexibility and there are more options.”
