Future of TV Briefing: The upfront measurement currency changeover will prolong the market and affect how ads are priced

The tariff-affected economy won’t be the only thing dragging out this year’s TV and streaming advertising upfront market. The long-awaited measurement currency changeover is finally happening, and it’s throwing another financial wrench in upfront negotiations. 

Upfront ad buyers and sellers have to sort out not only changes between viewership counts but to what extent that should change how inventory is priced. And just to make everything extra fun, the changes between counts have been changing.

“When we’re seeing lifts in impressions, we should see the same reduction in [ad prices] in our opinion. The networks don’t want to change that CPM at all. So that’s what we’re working through now,” said one agency executive.

With Nielsen phasing out its panel-only measurement system by the end of this year, upfront ad buyers and sellers have effectively no choice but to transition to a new measurement on which to base their upfront transactions. 

“For all intents and purposes, what we’re looking at now is starting in [the fourth quarter of 2025] – so as part of this 25-26 [upfront] negotiation, we are going to potentially be shifting into the big data plus panel measurement currency,” said Jimmy Schaaf, vp of national video investment, Canvas Worldwide, referring to Nielsen’s newer measurement system that Media Rating Council accredited earlier this year. 

Nielsen’s big data plus panel measurement system will be the primary currency in this year’s upfront deals, according to executives at agencies as well as TV network and streaming service owners. But while it’s still a Nielsen measurement that will underpin the bulk of upfront budgets, it’s a new currency nonetheless that requires a new valuation of TV and streaming ad inventory.

“That hasn’t been fleshed out all the way. This is where our teams are now. What we’ve been doing since the upfront [presentations in mid-May], we have been getting, ‘let’s validate for specific clients,’” said a second agency executive. 

This validation process entails looking at viewership dayparts as well as at specific TV networks and streaming services to assess audience numbers based on Nielsen’s big data plus panel measurement in comparison to it’s legacy panel-based measurement. To be clear, these assessments have been ongoing for more than two years at this point. But the comparison keeps changing.

“Last year when we were looking at panel vs. big data, the conversions overall were around 8% higher. So effectively big data was showing, on average, 8% higher impressions than panel-only. But obviously that varies by network and by [audience demographic group], and that was based on historical [numbers], so there’s no guarantee that that gap, that 8% increase that we saw a year ago, will remain at 8%,” said a third agency executive.

In fact, that 8% gap has changed since last year. The gap is now 2%, i.e. viewership figures from Nielsen’s big data plus panel are 2% higher than its legacy panel-only measurement, according to the third agency executive. But whether 8% then or 2%, again the gap varies by network and by audience segment.

“Some [TV networks] aren’t seeing an actual lift, because it really is just a change in the model of the data. It’s not an actual addition of impressions to the market,” said Schaaf.

Therein lies the rub. 

From agency executives’ perspective, Nielsen’s big data plus panel measurement is not counting new viewers so much as it is finally accounting for viewers that its legacy panel-based system undercounted, by virtue of the latter being based on a sample of roughly 42,000 households compared to the former’s 45 million households. In other words, advertisers shouldn’t be charged more for viewers they were reaching all along. 

From the perspective of TV network and streaming executives though, they were historically charging only for the audiences that they could prove they were reaching based on Nielsen’s legacy counts. In other words, if now TV networks and streaming services can show they are reaching more viewers than previously counted, they should be paid proportionally. 

This pricing dispute is what seems set to drag out this year’s upfront. Because it’s not only the differing perspectives but the differing measurements. The gap between old and new measurement systems yet to fully stabilize, but once this year’s upfront deals are set in late summer, they will effectively codify that gap into the new baseline. Which is why agencies are taking care to make sure they’re validating the metrics up to the last moment.

“The initial thought was we’d all figure it out as a market beforehand, but obviously the upfront waits for no one. So we’re still working through everything that we do from a typical upfront. Obviously we’re going to negotiate our rates, and from there, more towards the end of the summer as we get into that August timeframe, that’s when we’ll really start to finalize [the audience conversions],” said the first agency executive, referring to the period of the upfront when agencies and advertisers submit their upfront orders, which can change from the initial commitments registered in the upfront’s initial phase.

“I don’t think the validation will end until probably the end of the summer when people are really negotiating in the upfront. That’s when you can talk about pricing,” said the second agency executive. 

What we’ve heard

“There was a lot of urgency at first, and it has slowed down a bit in the last week. There was a lot of ‘Hurry up and get registered, get you money in.’ Then all of a sudden, everyone fell off of that. NBCU, obviously, has a very enticing 2026; they’ve got Super Bowl, Olympics, World Cup, [NBA] All-Star Game. So they obviously have been keen to try to get people in, especially those that invest heavily in sports. They’re one of the ones that is moving a little quicker.”

— Agency executive on this year’s upfront market pace

Numbers to know

$37 billion: How much debt Warner Bros. Discovery will saddle the Global Networks company with after next year’s split.

20%: How much ad spending on content creators is expected to increase year over year in 2025.

$438.7 million: How much Disney will pay Comcast to assume the latter’s stake in Hulu.

3.5%: Percentage share of Paramount Global’s employees who are being laid off this week.

130,000: Number of film and TV scripts that AI companies are using to train their models.

14.3%: Percentage share of sampled sports-related CTV ad inventory that includes information about the corresponding sports league.

What we’ve covered

WPP Media cuts 2025 ad spend predictions in response to tariff uncertainty:

• The media agency expects 2025 ad revenue to grow by 6%, versus a previous estimate of 7.7% growth.
• WPP Media predicts ad spending on social platforms will surpass spending on TV and legacy media.

Read more about the 2025 ad spend outlook here.

Upfront sports is getting the job done – but it’s not helping the rest of the market move:

• The NFL is the big selling point in this year’s upfront market, followed by the NBA.
• NBCUniversal is asking advertisers to commit equally to next year’s Super Bowl and Winter Olympics.

Read more about the upfront market here.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney hopes to outbuild YouTube, outmaneuver Apple and outlast the metaverse hype:

The company behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine is positioned to become the metaverse equivalent to YouTube.

Its CEO doesn’t like the YouTube comparison though (even though it’s apt).

Read more about Epic Games here.

What we’re reading

Warner Bros. Discovery to officially split:

Less than a year after forming separate divisions for its streaming and studios business and for its cable TV network portfolio respectively, WBD is effectively undoing the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery Networks by offloading the former’s TV networks onto the latter, according to The New York Times.

NBCUniversal’s upfront sales:

The Comcast-owned conglomerate pressed ad buyers earlier this month to commit to Super Bowl sponsorships or have their slots surrendered to other brands, as the sports upfront marketplace has gotten underway, according to Variety.

TikTok likely to get another reprieve:

President Donald Trump plans to extend for the third time the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok or the app being banned in the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal.

AMC Networks’ AI deal:

The cable TV network conglomerate has signed a deal to use Runway’s video-based generative AI technology to create images and videos for marketing and show concepts, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

AI has already invaded Hollywood:

Film-and-TV workers are saying that generative AI is already being used on projects, while AI film studio Asteria is trying to differentiate itself by developing a model it claims to be based purely on licensed content, according to Vulture.