How busy is it? In Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, there were three such events to woo marketers and agencies, held one after the other at breakfast time, lunchtime and in the early afternoon, with the final one wrapped up in time for happy hour.
These efforts by media companies are known on Madison Avenue as upfronts, because they take place before the coming television season. For decades, when there was only broadcast television, the upfront presentations were scheduled for mid-May. In the last few years, in response to the proliferation of cable, video, online viewing and social media, events have been added earlier in the spring, with fanciful titles like Digital Content NewFronts.
Now, however, media giants like Google, NBCUniversal, Time Warner and Viacom are front-running the upfronts. The winter has been filled with events hosted by cable channels like Nickelodeon, Oxygen and Style, as well as nontraditional players like the YouTube unit of Google and the Warner Brothers Brand Networks unit of Time Warner, which sells commercial time in programs like “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” and a newcomer, “Bethenny,” scheduled for the fall.
“Every single day of the year, you can be at an upfront, an ‘infront’ or a ‘newfront,’ ” said Wenda Harris Millard, president at MediaLink, laughing.
There is a simple reason for the decision to pull the upfront forward: if money can be had and deals booked, why wait?
“Any head start to help our clients understand what we’re doing helps us,” said Lauren Hogan, senior director for the Southeast at USA Today, on Tuesday morning at the first-ever upfront presentation by USA Today’s parent, the Gannett Company.
The event, which the company called Gannett Front, was promoted on Twitter with the hashtag #GannettConnects. About 400 people came to the AXA Equitable building for breakfast and a slick, hourlong presentation styled like a television show, complete with a singer, a standup comedian who played host, speakers billed as guests and filmed skits described as commercials.
The Gannett upfront pitch was to consider the company not just as a newspaper publisher but also as an information provider with strength in newer realms like mobile, online video and social media. Or, as Mary Murcko, president for national sales at Gannett, put it, “Gannett is more than you thought.”
In introducing her, the comedian, Andrew Kennedy, said: “This is the sales and presentation part of the presentation. How’s that for being upfront?”
The next event, at the Times Center, included a four-song set by the singer Sheryl Crow and a look at an ambitious development slate at the CMT cable channel, part of the Viacom Media Networks division of Viacom. CMT plans its first animated series, “Bounty Hunters,” with voices by comedians like Jeff Foxworthy; news and documentary programs; a reality series, “Dog and Beth: On the Hunt,” featuring the bounty hunter Dog Chapman and his wife; and a pranks show, “Hillbillies for Hire.”
The goal, said Jayson Dinsmore, executive vice president for development at CMT, is to expand the channel’s current two nights a week of original programming to three by January 2014 and four by 2016.
As for presenting two and a half months before the broadcast networks host their upfronts, Brian Philips, president at CMT, said: “We know everyone’s busy. We want to be in people’s consciousness early. And we have a lot going on now; we want to capture the moment.”
The final presentation was by the Fox Sports Media Group, part of News Corporation, which used the occasion to announce, after considerable speculation, that it would convert its Speed cable channel, effective on Aug. 17, into a national competitor to ESPN called Fox Sports 1.
The event, at the Marquis Theater in the Marriott Marquis hotel, followed a news conference attended by Fox Sports Media Group executives and two dozen sports announcers and anchors. Among them were Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, Howie Long, Curt Menefee, Tim McCarver, Michael Strahan and the first new marquee employee of Fox Sports 1, Regis Philbin, who will host “Rush Hour,” a weekday talk show.
“It is a historic day for us,” said David Hill, who led Fox Sports when it began two decades ago and will head the new channel. “We have been looking at a national sports channel with various degrees of seriousness for, I’d say, 15 years.”
Toby Byrne, president for sales at Fox Broadcasting Company and Fox Sports Media Group, asked for the order, to use a familiar sales phrase. “As of today, we’ll be open for business,” he said, adding that the channel had good potential because “the appetite for sports seems insatiable.”
The channel is being started because News Corporation was able to secure enough sports programming for it, Mr. Byrne said, along with distribution in 90 million homes from cable system operators. “With programming and distribution, hopefully, come the viewers,” he said, “and then it’ll be a really appealing thing for the advertisers.”
For those worried about withdrawal pains after three upfront events in one day, fear not. The NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal will hold an upfront luncheon on March 14.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/business/media/media-companies-hold-upfront-advertiser-events-early.html?partner=rss&emc=rss