ViacomCBS To Hold A Two-Day Virtual Upfront

As the Covid-19 pandemic putting the advertising and media communities on hold, the newly reunited ViacomCBS announced they would be holding a streaming video upfront over two days (May 18 and May 19). The first day of the “ViacomCBS Upfront @ Home” will be used to tout their cable properties such as MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon as well as Pluto TV. The following day will the virtual upfront will be spent promoting the CBS Network and streaming CBS All Access. For years the annual CBS presentation had been held at Carnegie Hall and was one of the highlights of upfront week. The CBS upfront was then followed by a gala reception where CBS talent intermingled with ad buyers over jumbo shrimp.

In an note to advertisers, JoAnne Ross, the head of sales at ViacomCBS told advertisers, “I’d rather be – writing to you this time of year to invite you to one of our intimate upfront dinners or our annual celebration at Carnegie Hall. Clearly, the current climate is different, but as they say at Carnegie, the show must go on!” The virtual upfront comes at a time when many marketers, in the wake of the pandemic, have been cutting back on their ad budgets. The ViacomCBS has also been financially impacted by the pandemic, the 2020 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, one of the programming highlights of the year was cancelled for the first time in its 81-year history.

The upfront is also important since this is the first one since Viacom and CBS were reunited. It would present to advertisers all the assets ViacomCBS has at its disposal as it competes for ad dollars with Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Disney and AT&T’s WarnerMedia and other. In addition, the upfront traditionally coincides with the end of the broadcast season in late May. CBS and the other networks use the upfront to promote their ratings accomplishments in front of advertisers set to invest billions of dollars into the ad marketplace.

For years, CBS has had of the most stable programming lineups in television. Ross will certainly highlight that CBS has renewed 23 of their programs for the upcoming 2020-21 season, accounting for 80% of their schedule. This familiarity will be beneficial to advertisers. In 2019-20 CBS is set to be the most watched television network for the 12^th straight season and the top-rated network in daytime and late-night dayparts. CBS will also televise Super Bowl LV scheduled for February 2021.

Another component of the upfront presentations has been the power of television to build reach and brand awareness. As more ad dollars are being allocated to digital properties (most notably Google and Facebook), the television networks have been mentioning brand safety, viewability and click fraud that has raised concerns with Madison Avenue ad buyers. The networks will also promote their video streaming services to keep ad dollars in-house. In addition, the networks have been using data companies to point out television is just as potent as digital media with brand consideration and purchase intent.

The third and component of the upfront is the programming schedule and strategy for the upcoming season. In typical years, the network executives will have made decisions on what pilots they plan to pick up for the new season. With production such down across all scripted and unscripted in mid-March, the it will be difficult to put together a program lineup. CBS executives may opt to treat the virtual upfront as a program development meeting in which they could tell advertisers what new shows they are considering whenever production resumes. CBS may also look at Zoom as a vehicle to film programs. The network recently used Zoom for the season finale of its first-year legal drama All Rise. In any event it’s new territory. 

It is doubtful that CBS can move the upfront ad marketplace that collectively garnered about $9 billion for broadcast television with another $11 billion going to cable. What moves the television ad market is fear of missing out (FOMO) with marketers. Those advertisers that miss the upfront will typically pay a premium rate with the quarterly scatter marketplace.

Despite the success of CBS, rival networks will also have their own upfronts to move the ad buying negotiations forward. Through the years, the upfront ad buying market has been financially beneficial to the networks, despite losing viewers virtually every year for decades.

One thought is fourth quarter will be scatter and the upfronts will start in first quarter 2021. Many advertisers would like to have a Fall upfront since it’s probably closer to their fiscal year. Pushing the upfront marketplace to the Fall makes sense, especially with year-round original content coming from their new streaming video partners instead of an antiquated broadcast season.

Since ViacomCBS has so many media properties with advertising opportunities, having a two-day virtual upfront may make sense going forward. It would allow ViacomCBS (as well as Disney, NBCUniversal and others) time to promote their entire content portfolio to the ad marketplace. Something that could not be done in a star studded 90-minute presentation.

In any event, there could be a number of businesses altered by Covid-19, perhaps the television upfronts will be one of them.