Get the latest gossip

TV’s Upfront Week, Once Cheery, Gets Crabby, Cramped and Contentious


TV's long-running Upfront Week is showing signs of fatigue, with more media companies making pitches over fewer days

Since the 1960s, executives from at least one TV network have put on, as Ed Sullivan once said, “a really big show” for the top spenders from General Motors, Coca-Cola and Apple in hopes of securing millions of dollars ahead of the next programming season. Attendees regularly visited New York City, dined on chilled shellfish, drank free booze, collected TV-star autographs and met up with TV ad-sales executives and media buyers from their current agency of record. Disney, meanwhile, is holding a press event Tuesday morning to talk about ESPN that executives at Spanish-language giant TelevisaUnivision fear will siphon away journalists who might typically attend an upfront showcase it has planned in a similar time slot.

Get the Android app

Or read this on Variety

Read more on:

Photo of crabby

crabby