10 seats left:

Join us Dec. 1-3 in New Orleans for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit

SECURE YOUR SEAT

Why TV advertising’s upfront model won’t fade away

TV advertising’s 60-year-old upfront model may be all but inextinguishable. It’s in the midst of an overhaul but is unlikely to be abolished.

For years — and especially over the past three years — the end of the upfront, as TV ad industry observers’ favored forecast, has been rivaled only by the divining of Netflix’s entry into advertising. Well, now that the latter has happened, surely the former isn’t far off. Erm, probably not.

Despite the financial confines of the upfront’s year-long commitments, TV ad buyers and sellers continue to seek economic comfort in the upfront model’s revenue guarantees and pricing assurance, as broken down in the video below.

More in Future of TV

Future of TV Briefing: Streaming advertising’s supply-demand imbalance

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at a spate of recent studies that illustrate the out-of-whack supply-demand dynamics in the streaming ad market.

Future of TV Briefing: YouTube’s dynamic brand insertions could unlock the upfront market for creators

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how YouTube’s plan to enable creators to swap out sponsored segments normally baked into their videos may be the most disruptive development in the creator economy in 2026.

Future of TV Briefing: The ad product OpenAI should introduce in Sora (I’m sorry)

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how OpenAI could create a commercial version of Sora’s Cameos feature that could thread the needle between a sponsored product, affiliate commerce and a revenue-sharing program for creators.