Fox Produces a Virtually Immersive Upfront Presentation

The Big Message: Each of Fox's four divisions -- Fox Entertainment, Fox Sports, Fox News Media and Tubi -- stands on its own as an innovative advertising platform reaching highly engaged consumers. All four divisions are dedicated to offering best-in-class programming and partnering with sponsors on unique multi-element campaigns.

Hosts: Collier and fellow Chief Executive Officers Suzanne Scott (Fox News Media), Eric Shanks (Fox Sports) and Farhad Massoudi (Tubi) presented on behalf of their respective units in solid fashion. Marianne Gambelli (pictured below), Fox's President of Ad Sales, Marketing and Brand Partnerships, kicked off the presentation.

What Worked: Equal time given to each segment, with plenty of appearances from celebrities and personalities associated with each Fox unit. Nice to see valuable time taken in the Fox News Media portion on the after-hours primetime lineup at Fox Business Network and Fox Weather's format.

What Also Worked: Snazzy graphic transitions from one virtual segment to the next, lasting just long enough for attendees to keep their attention from wandering elsewhere.

What Didn't Work: The way the presentation ended. With a few minutes to go, Collier suddenly appeared in person, walked to the center of the room, thanked everyone for coming, brought Monarch co-star Susan Sarandon on for a few remarks, and had Sarandon introduce co-star Trace Adkins to perform "A Country Boy Can Survive" with a pre-taped music track. Immediately after, most of the talent seen from the virtual sets (from Gordon Ramsay to the Fox Sports hosts) showed up live to mingle with attendees for the reception. I couldn't help but wonder … why pre-record all those virtual sequences if the talent was going to be on site anyway? Perhaps Fox was keeping its options open in the event a sudden New York City COVID surge necessitated an abrupt pivot to an all-virtual presentation?

Bonus Points: Nick Cannon, whose DJ work enlivened Tubi's NewFront event the first week of May, came back to spin more music at Fox's post-presentation turntable. Every song he played was a winner.

Data Points: More than 200 million people watch one or more of Fox's programming services, including multichannel bundle Tubi, each month. Tubi completed the first three months of 2022 with 51 million active users, and so far, appears on track to shatter its mark of 3.6 billion hours watched last year, up 40 percent in total viewing time from 2020. Big Noon Kickoff, Fox's college football pre-game hour on Saturday afternoons, averaged 5.1 million viewers per week last fall, a double-digit surge of viewers from 2020. On another note, Gordon Ramsay has to date hosted or produced more than 1,200 hours of Fox Entertainment content.

News: Jamie Foxx, already on Fox's broadcast net lineup as host of Beat Shazam!, will executive produce Alert, a procedural dealing with the Los Angeles Police Department's missing person's squad. Ramsay's next original series for the net will be Gordon Ramsay's Food Stars, where 15 food-and-drink entrepreneurs serve up new food or drink concepts, one of which will get a $250,000 investment from Ramsay. Summer series Fantasy Island and Lego Masters will graduate to fall or midseason premieres during the 2022-23 cycle. At Tubi, the trio of new animated movies coming from Fox unit Bento Box Entertainment will be horror-com Pastacolypse (yes, the plot involves half-man/macaroni creatures that threaten the world as we know it), action-com Millennial Hunter and boxing satire Big Bruh.

Parting Words: "What makes us a good choice for advertisers? We lead." -- Marianne Gambelli, Fox's President of Ad Sales, Marketing and Brand Partnerships

"Without you, we would just be Netflix." -- Fox Sports Chief Executive Officer Eric Shanks

"Together we've created a community that speaks to the heart of our country -- a diverse community that cuts across party lines and labels. More Republicans, independents and yes, more Democrats, watch us over our competitors." -- Suzanne Scott, Fox News Media Chief Executive Officer

"Our mission is simple: to superserve all audiences with diverse voices. We're leaps and bounds above everyone else." -- Tubi Chief Executive Officer Farhad Massoudi

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