HISTORY's Moment in Media: How "Upfront" Became a Noun Over Decades of Ad Sales Innovation

As it turns out roughly 80 percent of network television and 50 percent of cable television advertising is sold during the Upfronts or soon afteramp160 With billions of dollars at stake in a few weeks the networks go all out to impress their prospective clientsamp160 They bring in stars to pitch the material and circulate at parties they rent toptier performance spaces such as Jazz at Lincoln Center and Radio City Music Hall for their presentations and they do just about anything to get advertisers39 attentionamp160amp160AE Networks owners of HISTORY for example brought in former President George W Bush AMC the makers of Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead became famous for putting on immersive events where participants could make quotcrystal methquot or be gnawed on by zombiesBut like any modern tradition this one comes with a backstoryamp160 In the 1950s when television was nascent networks would preview their shows39 contents to advertisers on no particular scheduleamp160 Advertisers really wanted to know one thing How many people would see their productsamp160 The answer to that was provided by Nielsen which measured the size of each audienceAt the beginning this was a relatively simple process because there were really only three networks NBC CBS and ABCamp160 However by the early 1960samp160ABC was falling behindamp160 It was established in the late 1940s two decades behind the other two networks both of which had their roots in radioamp160 ABC Presidentamp160Oliver Treyzamp160had to do some outofthebox thinkingTreyz realized that auto manufacturers some of the biggest TV advertisers debuted their new car models in the fallamp160 So in 1962 he arranged to premiere all of ABC39s shows in the week after Labor Dayamp160 It was so successful that the other two networks soon did the sameamp160 By the end of the decade TV premiere week had become a national happeningamp160 The clustering of the fall programming led to the Upfronts because the networks required an advertiser commitment by the springBut that wasn39t Treyz39s only insight as part of selling its shows ABC still had to overcome the relatively small size of its audienceamp160 He realized that passionate and impressionable young audiences might be more interesting to advertisers than just a big untargeted audienceamp160 He got Nielsen to break down viewers by age and the valuable 18amp821149 quotyouthquot demographic was bornamp160 To make sure he39d take advantage of the new demo he created and previewed The Jetsons a spaceage animated cartoon that he39d hoped would appeal to younger audiencesABC still had one more big contribution to make to the Upfrontsamp160 Treyz realized that advertisers would be more willing to bet on a show if he could guarantee them a certain number of viewersamp160 He created the first deal where the advertiser in this case American Home Products had to pay based only on a rate per the number of viewers who would eventually watchamp160 That pricing structure now known as charging by the CPM or cost per thousand impressions became the standardamp160 He offered a better rate for those who bought earlier another factor that played into the creation of the UpfrontsNow there are Upfronts for different categories of shows eg kids for different languages and different countriesamp160 Digital programming and video games also have Upfronts but because they are not tied to fall premieres they do not require the same seasonal commitment of fundsamp160 And whileamp160the Upfront landscape changes every year advertisers keep coming back to see what innovative ideas the content creators will come up with nextClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writersamp160

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: How "Upfront" Became a Noun Over Decades of Ad Sales Innovation

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