Fox wrapped up its upfront market, taking advantage of strong demand and scarce ratings to get big price increases across its broadcast, cable and streaming platforms, according to sources familiar with the situation
Earlier in the week, NBCU and the Walt Disney Co. said they had largely completed negotiations. Sources indicate that advertisers are paying price increases in the 19% to 22% range on a cost-per-thousand viewers basis, the highest in years.
The CW completed its upfront deals Friday.
Fox’s deals started with NFL and college football, where demand for inventory was particularly strong.
At the same time, Fox was able to get big upfront commitments for its Tubi streaming service, In its second upfront as part of Fox, Tubi tripled its upfront commitments, and the number of new upfront advertisers for Tubi and Fox digital doubled.
Linear revenue was also up across all categories.
Leading up to the upfront, Fox ad sales president Marianne Gambelli touted Fox’s position as the only media company completely dedicated to an ad supported portfolio.
It was unclear where ViacomCBS and Discovery stood in the market. Earlier in the week buyers said both companies were holding out for even bigger price increases.
Speaking at an investor conference yesterday, David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery, confirmed that his company was not done with its upfront deals and was looking for big price increases to close the gap between the rates the broadcast networks get and what Discovery’s cable properties receive.
