In this year’s annual TV advertising upfront marketplace, advertisers will be forced to confront their long-held programming preferences as they face a tight TV and streaming ad market while attempting to chase audiences from traditional TV to streaming.
As linear TV and streaming viewership continue to head in opposite directions, agency executives expect advertisers to continue to move more money to streaming in this year’s upfront. A good chunk of those streaming dollars is likely to stay with the TV networks, especially those that operate their own standalone streaming services. But even those streamers’ ad availabilities have been relatively limited. That’s in part because of the streamers’ lighter-than-linear ad loads, but also “their inventory is tight because not a lot of people have signed up yet,” said one agency executive.
