Stuart Elliott: It's What's "Upfront" that Counts -- Or is It?

Tens of billions of dollars are at stake during these annual springtime bazaars known for the hawking hustling and haggling that go on amid the parties concerts and lines for celebrity photos at selfie stations The first two weeks are primarily the province of firms that produce original online video as the Interactive Advertising Bureau presents its Digital Content NewFrontsEditor39s Note Be sure to readamp160Upfront Yellow Flag Has the Bull Market Turned Bearish by Jack MyersThen from May 16 through 19 the heaviest hitters of television among them ABC CBS The CW ESPN Fox NBCUniversal Turner and Univision provide sneak peeks at their fall schedules and kick off the Upfronts Upfronts NewFronts oldfronts bluefronts who39s fronting whoAfter several years of contentious jostling for position when traditional TV lost power and influence to its newer digital rivals forecasters are suggesting that the broadcasters and cable networks seem poised to claw back some of the dollars that have been drifting away from themSome of those potential gains are attributable to the realization by marketers such as Procter ampamp Gamble that they ought to bolster advertising spending to stimulate demand for their products and services The recovering economy bumpy as it is also accounts for some portion of the improving picture for traditional TV as does the fact that marketers waiting until the 201516 season began to buy commercial time paid more than they would have in the UpfrontsAnother factor the scare the new media put into the old media is inspiring the latter to reconsider the bad practices that helped enable the former to grab money and market share Several networks are rethinking the increasingly heavy ad loads that have alienated viewers and advertisers undermining the value of traditional TV They include MTV TNT and NBC which announced last week that it would reduce ad loads during quotSaturday Night Livequot starting with the 201617 season by about 30 percentIt also appears that traditional TV is gaining on the fundamentals The difficulties agencies run into when they spend in digital media ad blocking ad fraud privacy pushbacks from consumers could be redounding to the benefit of the old reliables In a new report from Accenture the fifth in its quotFuture of Broadcastingquot series there39s a finding that broadcasters are trusted more quotto provide highquality service than Internet video providers and social media service providersquotAnd as the new media become notsonew they39re losing the benefit of being the bright shiny object Before media planners and buyers were deemed out of date even troglodytes if they didn39t switch ad dollars to streaming video social media platforms and the like Now as the new media companies become an intrinsic part of the Madison Avenue landscape decisions can be made in more dispassionate waysIt wouldn39t be the quotfrontsquot season if there wasn39t grumbling about how jampacked the schedule will be during the next three weeks and how overwhelmed those involved in it all will feel Many folks wish there39d be more daylight between the end of the NewFronts and the start of the UpfrontsA weekend just doesn39t seem enough time to recover from two weeks of perusing digital video offerings and to gird one39s loins for four days of trying to assess the prospects for new sitcoms dramas and reality series based only on snippetsOf course you could make a case that to paraphrase George Sanders in quotAll About Evequot that39s all the NewFronts are nothing but snippetsIt would however be difficult to reschedule the NewFronts to two other weeks before the Upfronts what with a spate of industry conferences in March and April not to mention all the presentations in those months put on by media firms and cable networks such as Azteca America BET Comedy Central Discovery Communications GSN IFC MTV Nickelodeon and Scripps Networks Interactive Look here for reports on all of those events and more And there39s no question that the NewFronts gain cachet from being held immediately before the UpfrontsSo how about devoting a couple of weeks in May to a combined showcase for video programming whether it39s broadcast cablecast online streamed on a device or intended to be watched on a toaster Call it Frontapalooza if you39d like And try to have most if not all of the events take place in one venue Lincoln Center maybe a la Fashion Week rather than make attendees frantically run around ManhattanThe Frontapalooza could be fronted jointly by the IAB and the mainstream media owners Or perhaps it could be held under the umbrella of an association or organization Or heck why not sign up a sponsoramp160quotFrontapalooza brought to you by the National Coffee Association supplier of the Official Beverage of Staying Awake for Negotiationsquot or the Pizzeria Industry Council quotsupplier of the Official Food of LateNight NegotiationsquotMaking my proposal possibly more than a pipe dream is the blurring of the lines between the purveyors of video Traditional television titans are producing digital video see Seeso for example while newmedia powerhouses such as Vice are adding traditional TV to their portfoliosOn the other hand I proposed something like this last year and it was embraced as warmly as Ted Cruz would be in the green room at quotRuPaul39s Drag Racequot Oh well as the Brooklyn Dodgers39 fans used to say quotWait till next yearquotThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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Stuart Elliott: It's What's "Upfront" that Counts -- Or is It?

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