Weak TV Upfront Market Has Advertisers Pushing for Pricing Rollbacks (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comBrian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The bill may be coming due for continued declines in TV ratings. Advertisers are pressing for rollbacks, or declines in the rates they pay for reaching TV viewers, in early “upfront” talks with TV networks, according to two media buying executives and other people familiar with these annual discussions in which U.S.
media companies try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory ahead of their next cycle of programming. Agreements that include reductions in these rates, also known as CPMs and a measure of the cost of reaching 1,000 viewers, have generally been extremely rare, and offer a signal that the continued migration of viewers to streaming and digital-video options is eroding the marketplace leverage of both traditional TV companies and some of their new-tech rivals as well.
The networks and the digital-video companies are in the middle of discussions, according to the buying executives, who expect that deals could start being made as soon as this week.
Recent discussions have called for CPM increases of around 5% for the strongest TV properties, like sports, and for rollbacks going as deep as -5% for weaker linear inventory and even for digital, according to executives.
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