During the annual broadcast upfronts last week, most of the networks picked up right where they left off last year: reasserting their dominance by repeatedly pummeling digital advertising, especially in light of advertisers’ renewed concerns about online placement in offensive environments on platforms like YouTube.
“Promising brand safety is a really low bar, and some companies can’t even do that,” said NBCUniversal’s ad sales chief Linda Yaccarino, setting the tone for the week, while newly promoted Fox ad sales chief Joe Marchese declared, “The subprime advertising market is dragging us all down.”
