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Marketing Brew

Upfronts

Jasmine Sheena

marketingbrew.com

Nielsen’s measurement accreditation woes aren’t over yet.

The Media Rating Council (MRC), the independent governing body that reviews, audits, and accredits media measurement products, is reviewing Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel product, which combines household panel data measuring TV measurement with data from set-top boxes and connected TVs, according to an email sent to audit committee members who attended a Sept. 10 MRC meeting

The email requests that members vote to start the process of stripping Big Data + Panel of its accreditation or to give Nielsen an additional 60 days to address some of the organization’s concerns about the product. (Members could also abstain.) Those concerns include delays in processing; Nielsen’s comprehensive weighting; Nielsen’s Household Demographic Assessment Model, which estimates demographic data for “data sets lacking those details,” according to 

; its sample representation; and its Hispanic measurement.

A removal of the accreditation could represent a step backwards for Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurement product, which the MRC accredited in January and has become a key currency for broadcasters and agencies during negotiations. At the time of the product’s accreditation, Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao 

 as a “landmark moment for TV ratings” that would “forever change audience measurement.”

Bill Daddi, a public relations representative for the MRC, noted in response to a request for comment that in-process audits and voting specifics are confidential, but confirmed that the organization is conducting voting on Nielsen’s 2024–25 audit, which he described as “a routine procedure that occurs at the conclusion of all audits.” Nielsen declined to comment on the record.

Nielsen has had a grip on the TV industry for quite some time, operating household panels that have been used to estimate TV viewership for decades.

In recent years, though, that grip has loosened, particularly after its flagship National Television Audience Measurement product 

 in 2021 after the measurement giant acknowledged it undercounted TV viewing audiences in the earliest months of the pandemic, which the MRC estimated could have cost broadcasters 

 in lost ad revenue. (That product’s accreditation has since been 

Since then, it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for Nielsen. Paramount made headlines late last year when it 

 a contract with Nielsen to expire over a pricing dispute and opted to use data from alternate measurement partner VideoAmp instead, although the companies have since come to an agreement. Just last month, the NFL’s chief data and analytics officer, Paul Ballew, 

 Nielsen, telling the Wall Street Journal that “there are millions of viewers that we believe they are systematically undercounting.” Network execs from Fox and ESPN 

 after Nielsen used a custom methodology to measure an NFL game from Brazil that was broadcast on YouTube last month.

Amid the measurement disagreements, alternative measurement providers like VideoAmp, Comscore, and iSpot have all jockeyed for more market share and legitimacy among advertisers and agencies. Ahead of this year’s upfront season, the US Joint Industry Committee 

 all three as currencies of record. According to a 2024 survey from Advertiser Perceptions 

 decision-makers said they view alternatives to Nielsen “to be more or just as effective than the legacy currency provider.”

Nielsen measurement accreditation faces uncertain future—again

Media Rating Council members are voting on whether to begin the process of stripping Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel of its accreditation or giving Nielsen more time to address concerns.

Fresh off of 120 Emmy nominations, Netflix beat analyst expectations and reported second-quarter revenue of $11.08 billion, up 16%.

In the United States and Canada, revenue grew 15% year over year, the company reported in its quarterly earnings on Thursday, despite broader macroeconomic uncertainty. Netflix also upped its full-year revenue guidance to around $45 billion.

This is Netflix’s second earnings report since it stopped reporting subscriber numbers except in the case of significant milestones, and this quarter, it did not provide any updates to its subscriber count.

“Things all look stable,” co-CEO Greg Peters said on an earnings call Thursday. “Big picture, entertainment in general and Netflix specific[ally] have been historically pretty resilient in tougher economic times.”

Netflix’s ads tier, which the company said 

 had 94 million monthly active users, continues its build-out, and its “US upfront is nearly complete,” according to a company shareholder letter. Overall, the company expects ad revenue to “roughly double” this year, CFO Spencer Neumann said on the call.

The streamer’s ad-tech offerings are also continuing to roll out. Peters confirmed on the call that its in-house platform, Netflix Ads Suite, is now fully available in all countries that offer an ad tier. To offer increased options for ad buyers, Netflix also inked a deal 

 Netflix users spent over 95 billion hours streaming programming in the first half of 2025, according to an engagement report published on Thursday, and some of that time spent is thanks to Netflix’s increasingly global footprint. More than a third of that time was spent on non-English-language titles, and of the 25 most-watched series in the first half of the year, 10 were in a language other than English. As it continues to build its international portfolio of content, Netflix inked a deal with French broadcaster TF1 

 to bring more live and on-demand programming to the platform.

Of course, the streamer continues to focus on live programming, including sports and reality. That includes a reboot of the unscripted talent show 

, Ted Sarandos, co-CEO, said on the call, and two Christmas Day NFL games. And earlier this month, it livestreamed two sporting events concurrently for the first time: the Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano boxing match and WWE SmackDown.

“If you look at our current capabilities around live, we are in just a completely different place today compared to when we first started,” Peters said.

 On the product side, Netflix in May unveiled a 

 designed to promote discoverability and shareability. It marked the first time the streamer had made significant changes to the interface in 12 years, and execs emphasized that the changes reflect the company’s ambitions to own more TV time.

“Bluntly, the previous experience was designed for the Netflix of 10 years ago, and the business has evolved considerably since then,” Peters said. “We got a wider breadth of entertainment options. We got TV and film: more of those, of course, from around the world, but now also games and live events. If you think about the discovery experience that’s best suited for these new content types, it’s…helping our members understand that there’s a really good reason for them to launch Netflix and tune in at 7pm on a Friday night versus just showing up whenever they were free.”

a large red N from the Netflix logo outside of an office building 

Netflix execs say ad sales revenue is set to double this year

The streamer, which has nearly completed its upfront, grew overall revenue 16% in the quarter, it announced Thursday.

A few months ago, NBCUniversal ad sales chief Mark Marshall 

 of Radio City Music Hall to pitch advertisers during upfronts week.

Seems like that high-wire act made an impact.

NBCU announced this week that it had wrapped the 2025–2026 upfront season by hitting its highest ad sales volume ever. The company attributed some of that growth to its stacked sports lineup that includes NBA games for the first time in more than two decades, the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, the 2026 Super Bowl, and the FIFA World Cup, as well as the media giant’s efforts to court small- and medium-sized businesses and boost its programmatic offerings.

Overall, categories such as retail, auto, and travel each saw growth of about 12%, according to the company. In a statement, Marshall described this upfront season as the “most successful…in our company’s history,” but the company did not disclose total revenue or rates.

“In a year set to redefine industry benchmarks, ad-supported reach remains the most influential force in media,” Marshall said in the statement.

 The company said this was also its best sports upfront ever, seeing a 20% growth in its advertising client base compared to last year Even excluding tentpole events like the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and the World Cup, NBCU saw a 45% growth in volume YoY. When it comes to those upcoming tentpoles, they also made records: NBCU’s Telemundo, which 

 to the Spanish-language broadcast of the World Cup, reported its “best upfront to date” and record World Cup revenue with 10 months still to go.

On the broadcast side, NBCU touted 15% YoY growth, which it said was due in part to the NBA, where over a quarter of advertisers will be first-timers to broadcast. (As part of a rights deal inked last year, NBCU has the rights to a significant number of WNBA and NBA games through 2036.)

 has seen “steady growth over the past five years” in terms of NBCU’s overall entertainment demand across broadcast and cable, the company said. And streaming platform Peacock, which also houses plenty of live sports streams, saw over 20% YoY growth, accounting for almost a third of NBCU’s total upfront dollars. Overall, Peacock had its “largest digital upfront in history,” according to the company.

The cable channels that are soon to be housed under Versant, the planned spin-off company that will include properties like CNBC, MSNBC, and USA, saw an almost 10% bump in clients. (NBCU is set to continue handling ad sales across the Versant properties for the next two years as part of an agreement announced in May.)

 According to NBCU, many of the ad dollars committed to NBCU this season came from the 30% net-new SMB clients it picked up this cycle. On the programmatic side, almost 60% of investments are “now transacted on advanced audiences,” signaling a move beyond the more standard demographics like age and gender.

The results from NBCU indicate the potential that advertisers are still prepared to spend big, especially on live sports, despite broader economic headwinds that have threatened to put a damper on advertiser upfront commitments. No wonder there’s such an intense fight for sports rights between traditional TV giants and streaming platforms.

Live sports rockets NBCU to record upfronts ad sales volume

Peacock accounted for nearly a third of advertiser commitments.

Live musical numbers, a Steve Aoki DJ set, and jokes about the nearly 50-year age gap between University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill head football coach Bill Belichick and his girlfriend Jordon Hudson. The 2025 upfronts season really had it all.

This year, there was also plenty of uncertainty. With fears of an economic downturn casting a figurative (and sometimes literal) rain cloud over the week, media execs were tasked with reassuring an industry expecting an ad spend 

 that their precious dollars would be well spent—and could be adjusted—if entrusted to them.

Ryan Gould, president of ad sales and client partnerships at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), told advertisers to “rest assured” that deals would be negotiated under “fully flexible” agreements; ad sales chief Rita Ferro said the company “is committed to being that strategic partner you can count on for flexibility and value.” Donna Speciale, president of ad sales and marketing at TelevisaUnivision, echoed similar sentiments to 

“[Marketers] want flexibility only because of the unknown, and the upfront gives them the flexibility,” Speciale said.

While each company had its own approach to pitching advertisers, some other common themes seemed to run through the presentations, which wrapped last week.

Throughout the week, media companies pitched simplifying things for ad buyers, and there are efforts to do the same in streaming—or at least to try to make the branding less confusing.

, the attempted joint streaming service between WBD, ESPN, and Fox 

, Fox and Disney are striking out on their own with streaming services. Disney’s upfront highlighted the streaming app aimed at centralizing ESPN programming in one place, which will be known as just “ESPN.” Ferro said the offering would allow subscribers to access all of ESPN’s programming plus additional features “all in one place.”

(Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel ribbed Disney for the choice, considering that it already operates an existing sports streaming service, ESPN+. “Will I get more content on ESPN+ than I do on ESPN?” he quipped onstage. “No. You will get less content on ESPN+. The plus is now, in many ways, a minus.”)

Ahead of its upfront, Fox revealed the name of its own streaming service set to launch in the fall: Fox One will combine various Fox programming, including Fox News, as well as Fox Sports programming like fall football, when it debuts later this year.

Last but not least, WBD revisited its somewhat baffling choice to drop the name of its cable crown jewel from its streaming service Max. A few years after the rebrand, the platform has 

media companies also seemed to want to get one message across: no, 

 have the most (or the best) sports. NBCUniversal 

 to future NBA games and the 2026 World Cup, while Disney CEO Bob Iger boasted that the company has “the most live sports hours in the industry.” Fox highlighted its rights to the Indianapolis 500 along with its slate of NFL games, and WBD, fresh off losing the NBA, hyped up tennis and NCAA basketball.

For companies with fewer total hours of sports, there was a focus on quality: NFL commissioner Roger Goodell made pit stops at both 

’s upfront presentations to highlight the few games that the streaming services have locked down rights to.

Would an upfront be an upfront without athletes onstage? At Disney, Peyton and Eli Manning sang a (dismally off-key) song, while Amazon trotted out 

 whiffed a pass so badly that it hit an audience member.

It’s not just live sports that streaming services want advertisers to buy into. NBCU touted an upcoming live 

 special, which will feature Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo crooning tunes at the Peacock Theater in LA ahead of the sequel’s theatrical release. And fresh off 

 50th anniversary celebrations in February, the company teased its 100-year celebration in 2026, which will include plenty of live programming.

At TelevisaUnivision, which operates the streaming service ViX, the company introduced YAFest, a televised and livestreamed Coachellaesque music festival that will run in three cities in September 2026. And at Netflix, execs wanted advertisers to get excited about other live programming, including a revival of the talent competition series 

reimagined as a live competition series complete with audience voting.

Some streaming services used upfronts week to dress up old offerings. NBCU had Versant, the new name of Comcast’s cable assets that are being spun off into a new company, which advertisers can keep buying through NBCU’s platform for the next two years.

WBD, meanwhile, trotted out Storyverse, a new offering for its content portfolio that, according to a press release, “recapture[s] the magic of the original IP through a branded lens” by allowing brands to tap into movies, TV series, and franchises from over the years.

comedian Jimmy Kimmel presenting at Disney upfront

Our biggest takeaways from this year’s upfronts

Sports, simplified streaming, and Steve Aoki were just some of the things attendees saw this year

Alyssa Meyers

Kelsey Sutton

What are the upfronts for, if not for cocktail receptions, long lines, and a chance to see stand-up comedians roast the industry you’ve dedicated your life to?

At this year’s upfronts presentations, the comedians tapped to impress advertisers didn’t hold back. Seth MacFarlane kicked off the week with a musical number at NBCUniversal, Jamie Foxx cracked jokes hosting Fox’s upfront, and late-night show hosts like Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel delivered onstage stand-up sets.

We rounded up some of our favorite punchlines from the week below.

Kimmel: I also know that many of you are worried that AI is going to take your jobs, but I don’t think it will. I don’t believe a computer, even the most powerful computer in the world, will ever be able to do what you do. And you know why? Because no computer 

 to do what you do. Your jobs suck. Every year our audience gets smaller, and we tell you it’s bigger, and we want more for less, and it’s exhausting, I know. We are annoying and unreasonable, and you have shitty jobs because of it.

On the industry’s inclination to have a cocktail:

Foxx: I ain’t seen people this ready to get drunk since last year’s upfront. I see some of my drinking buddies out there.

On Paramount opting not to host an in-person upfront:

MacFarlane: You can gamble on Paramount+, folks, though it seems they no longer even try. But you can go to their upfront show—you can find it in the basement of the Y.

MacFarlane: [Netflix’s] got 10,000 shows on the platform, but it ain’t where you want to write your checks ’cause you will find, yeah, that

Kimmel: [NBCU Chairman of Global Advertising and Partnerships] Mark Marshall claimed yesterday [that] his network has amassed the greatest collection of content that has ever been assembled by one media company. I guess Mark has never heard of Pornhub. Although based on the expression on his face, I feel like he has.

MacFarlane: All [HBO] series have stories of incest—what the hell are we supposed to take away? And holy cheese, will somebody please check on [Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David] Zaslav’s brother right away.

Kimmel: CBS was the most-watched network again for the 17th year in a row, led by their hit comedy, 

, which is also what most of their viewers will be soon.

Meyers: I host the 12:30 slot; I’m open to anything. If I could sell the naming rights to my kids, I would. Verizon would be a great name for my 7-year-old, considering how often I scream at him. “Can you hear me now?” My daughter’s name? Maybe it’s Adelaide, maybe it’s Maybelline, maybe it’s Ford F-150. I’m not picky.

Kimmel: I’m pleased to present an opportunity like nothing that has ever been presented at any upfront before. I am offering naming rights to my grandchild…Over the next few days, our family is expected to see 12% quarterly growth, and we’d like to build on that by offering our Disney partners the first and only cervical-integration opportunity.

Kimmel: They had a conclave, and a little puff of white smoke came out of [ESPN Chairman] Jimmy Pitaro’s ass, and the new service bringing live content to millions of fans around the world will go by the name ESPN. And that’s why they call us Imagineers. Now you may be asking, “What does this mean for ESPN+, which is on my phone? Will you get rid of that?” No, ESPN+ is here to stay. All right, so will I get more content on ESPN+ than I do on ESPN? No. You will get less content on ESPN+. The plus is now, in many ways, a minus...It’s all part of our plan to confuse you until you hand us the debit card of everyone in your family.

On Versant, the new name of Comcast’s cable channel spin-off company: 

Meyers: [Comcast] finally picked the name for SpinCo, and it’s Versant. That’s right, Versant. So remember, ask your doctor if Versant is right for you.

Kimmel: Versant is a perfect name. It already sounds like something you subscribe to by accident.

MacFarlane: Who’s in charge of the business at Max now? Well, whoever it is, they got to go. It’s awful sad, but it all went bad when they changed their stupid name from HBO.

Looks like the execs at Warner Bros. Discovery got the last laugh. When Casey Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, announced that Max would indeed be going back to its previous iteration, HBO Max, there was uproarious laughter.

This year’s best jokes from the upfronts

Comedians like Seth Meyers, Seth MacFarlane, Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O’Brien, and Jamie Foxx took shots at rivals and lampooned the state of the industry throughout the week. 

Katie Hicks

Upfronts week is all about talking a big game, and YouTube closed it out eager to talk the biggest.

The platform hosted its annual Brandcast event Wednesday evening for the second consecutive year at Lincoln Center—but this year, the stage, the scene, and the brand promises were much grander. As YouTube celebrates its 

, it spent as much time talking about its history as it did its future, with the platform now ranked the No. 1 streaming platform in terms of watch time two years in a row, according to Nielsen.

“YouTube has become the epicenter of culture,” CEO Neal Mohan told the audience. “But what comes next is even more exciting…This isn’t about YouTube becoming more like traditional TV, this is about TV becoming YouTube.”

Mohan pointed to YouTube’s creator series, gaming livestreams, sports content, podcasts (of which the platform has 1 billion monthly listeners), and music videos as evidence of its wide-ranging content and cross-screen influence. Perhaps there was no better example of its cultural pull than the closing act of the night: a no-holds-barred set from Lady Gaga, the first artist to reach 1 billion views on the platform.

, YouTube continued to emphasize its creator connections during the presentation, beginning with a red carpet pre-show outside Lincoln Center featuring creators Haley Kalil and Julian Shapiro Barnum. Creator Brittany Broski kicked off the event inside as host, and MrBeast, Sean Evans of 

, and IShowSpeed were brought onstage during the presentation to discuss their podcasts and video series.

 during this year’s upfronts, sports were emphasized as a key selling point. For YouTube, the big announcement came in the form of the 2025 NFL kickoff game in Brazil between the LA Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs, which was announced by Mohan and celebrated by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell onstage later in the show. (Goodell also made an appearance at 

just a few hours earlier.) Former NFL players Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman were also present to participate in one of MrBeast’s tug-of-war challenges.

 YouTube announced new advertising options for brands to seize on its pitched cultural and streaming dominance, including:

Cultural moments sponsorships, which allow advertisers to place ads at the top of searches related to cultural moments like the Oscars or Black Friday, in addition to creator takeovers

Peak points, which use Google’s generative AI tool Gemini to identify the most important part of a video and place ads immediately after

Redesigned, full-screen Masthead ads on the YouTube homepage

And new CTV shopping options, like a “send to phone” feature where consumers can continue browsing products on mobile using a QR code

 While Lady Gaga stuck to her more recent songs (plus “Shallow”) in her set, her closing performance pushed forward the theme of new and enduring legacies. She certainly wasn’t the only one there living for the 

“The energy in this room and what you just saw outside is really a testament to what we’ve built at YouTube over the past 20 years, and the next 20 promises to be even more transformational,” Mohan said. “We can’t wait for you to join us as we shape the future of entertainment and culture together.”

Youtube CEO Neal Moyan appears onstage at YouTube's 2025 Brandcast event, with the Youtube logo, the words "Brandcast," and creator images displayed on a screen behind him 

YouTube caps off upfronts week with a bang—and Lady Gaga

The platform put its streaming dominance and 20-year history of cultural impact on display Wednesday night.

Netflix’s message to advertisers this week was simple: we’re getting there.

At the company’s third upfront presentation to advertisers Wednesday, execs highlighted the growth of its ad-supported tier, touted new programming, including live competition series and sports—with plenty of celebrity appearances, and a performance from the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, who are the subject of a new docuseries.

But even as it showed off new capabilities, including new brand lift measurement and additional ways for advertisers to incorporate first-party and third-party data into its ad platform, some new functionalities won’t be fully available until 2026, a reminder that in the TV world, Netflix is still very new to the advertising game.

“I know you all heard us use the ‘crawl, walk, run’ analogy a million times,” Netflix’s president of advertising, Amy Reinhard, said onstage at the Perelman Performing Arts Center. “So instead, I'll borrow a page from 

 and say that we’re pulling out a pit lane lane and we’re getting up to speed.”

Netflix’s ads plan now has more than 94 million global monthly active users, Reinhard said onstage, more than double the 40 million it had a year ago. (That figure is based on Netflix profiles, so she estimated that the number of total viewers could be as high as 170 million monthly active viewers.) Beyond that, members of Netflix’s ad plan in the US spend an average of 41 hours every month on Netflix— “about the same amount of time we spend eating and drinking,” Reinhard noted.

Netflix’s in-house advertising platform, the Netflix Ads Suite, also continues its rollout. The platform is live in the US and Canada and next week will be available in additional markets; by June, it should be available across all of its 12 ad-supported countries.

To tout its growing slate of options for advertisers, Lily Collins appeared virtually in character as Emily Cooper from the hit series 

to walk advertisers through some of the targeting capabilities available through Netflix Ad Suite.

“The foundation of our ad business is in place,” Reinhard said. “And going forward, the pace of progress is going to be even faster.”

In addition to Collins, there were plenty of stars who showed up at the presentation, including Jude Law and Jason Bateman (who star in the upcoming Netflix limited series 

 Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, and Gaten Matarazzo from the 

cast, Taraji P. Henson, Sherri Shepherd, and Teyana Taylor (from Tyler Perry’s crime drama 

), and Kristen Bell, Adam Brody, and the rest of the cast from the rom-com 

Oscar winner Charlize Theron, star of the Netflix original film 

and its forthcoming sequel, as well as the upcoming serial-killer thriller 

, also made an appearance. (“It’s actually a miracle that I’m here today,” she said onstage. “

 only wrapped, like, a week ago, so I’m fresh off the mountain. I still have some Australian dirt under this pretty manicure, and my cute boot is hiding a fractured toe.”)

The appearance of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell though, who announced the matchups featured in this year’s Christmas Day NFL games, was a cameo that underscored the streamer’s growing commitment to live sports, which remain an advertising windfall. After the success of the 

 boxing matchup (technical issues notwithstanding), Netflix will continue to throw in for 

: Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano will go head-to-head in a rematch bout on July 11.

As Netflix looks to win over ad dollars, Netflix CMO Marian Lee noted other ways beyond midroll ad buys that brands can get involved in the streamer’s IP.

, which arrives this August, Netflix is working with Wendy’s, Booking.com, and Cheetos on campaigns tied to the series, Lee said. The partnerships follow other high-profile partner activations, like ones between Domino’s and 

Lee said those examples are indicative of the company’s tailor-made approach to delivering for advertising partners.

“We’re always looking for creative ways to build our brand and connect with fans, and when you partner with us, you will get the same treatment,” Lee said.

Meanwhile, apologies continue to be in order for executives and advertisers alike who continue to face the unfortunate timing of upfronts.

“When I started this job, someone asked me what the biggest difference was between working in Netflix and my old jobs at linear networks, and without hesitation, I told them—Mother’s Day,” Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria said onstage to laughter. “For years, I had to fly to New York on Mother’s Day for the upfront. You all can relate, I’m sure. So when I came to Netflix, I was excited that my kids could finally make me breakfast in bed. And yet here we are. I guess some things never change.”

President of advertising Amy Reinhard onstage at Netflix's 2025 upfront presentation held at the Perelman Performing Arts Center