Why This Year’s Upfronts Will Be the Most Digital Yet

The annual TV Upfronts have long been a fixture of traditional media buying, dominated by linear commitments, GRP negotiations, and limited flexibility. But this year, the Upfronts are undergoing a transformation unlike any before. With media consumption habits evolving, brands demanding greater agility, and technology enabling deeper, privacy-safe insights, the digital transformation of the upfront marketplace is accelerating—and for good reason. This year, the event is more digital, more data-driven, and more flexible than ever, reshaping how brands plan, buy, and measure their media investments. Newfronts still took place last week, but brands are still going into the upfronts week with a digital focus.

Let’s explore the four driving forces behind this shift.

More Data, More Control

Audiences are now spread across a dizzying array of platforms: linear TV, CTV, FAST channels, YouTube, TikTok, social video, gaming, and beyond. This explosion of platforms and new media channels has shattered the old TV landscape. While this fragmentation once posed a challenge, it has become an opportunity for brands willing to embrace data.

With each platform comes a unique set of data signals—demographics, behavioral insights, viewing patterns, and engagement metrics. This wealth of data gives marketers more control than traditional linear buys ever could. Rather than relying on age/gender proxies, advertisers can now target precise audiences based on interests, purchase behavior, or intent signals.

In fact, 51% of brand, retailer, and agency professionals plan to invest in this year’s Upfronts, up from 37% in 2023, with a growing emphasis on streaming platforms alongside traditional TV.

Brands Are Already Doing It—And Winning

The move toward cross-platform buying isn’t theoretical- it’s already delivering results! Brands that leverage advanced data analytics and unified buying platforms are seeing measurable gains in campaign effectiveness, reach, and ROI. For example, a recent analysis of over 20,000 cross-platform campaigns found that using streaming and linear TV together not only boosted overall results but also helped brands reach audiences that might otherwise be missed.

Industry benchmarks show that connected TV (CTV) and digital platforms are particularly effective at reaching elusive demographics-like light or non-linear TV viewers-while providing advanced targeting and measurement capabilities. Case studies demonstrate that holistic, cross-media strategies can deliver incremental reach, optimize frequency, and drive higher engagement compared to relying on linear TV alone.

These results highlight that brands embracing digital, data-driven Upfront strategies are gaining a clear competitive advantage in today’s fragmented media landscape. These aren’t experiments anymore. They’re best practices.

Clean Rooms & Privacy-Safe Tech Are Unlocking Cross-Platform Insight

With privacy regulations tightening and consumer data under scrutiny, clean rooms have become essential for advertisers seeking actionable, privacy-safe insights. Clean rooms allow brands and media partners to securely share and analyze audience data without exposing sensitive information, enabling robust cross-platform measurement and targeting. This means advertisers can analyze how their media investments perform across touchpoints—TV, digital, social, and more—while adhering to all privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

Many of the top publishers have all launched clean room solutions, and adoption is growing quickly. According to the IAB's "State of Data 2023" report, 64% of companies leveraging privacy-preserving technology are using clean rooms. This is a game-changer for upfront deals. Now, buyers can negotiate with confidence, knowing they’ll get cross-channel measurement and optimization, not just GRPs and impressions.

Flexibility: Reallocating Spend to Top-Performing Platforms

In traditional TV buying, once your spend is committed, it’s locked. If a campaign underperforms, tough luck—you’re stuck until the flight ends. In addition to the average market swings we normally see, this year’s tariffs and macroeconomic uncertainty make it increasingly important for brands to maintain more budget flexibility than ever before. A recent report from eMarketer highlights significant possible ad spending declines for this year’s TV upfronts between $2.78 billion and $4.12 billion due to marketplace volatility. But unlike years past, today’s platforms allow advertisers to monitor performance and react to marketplace changes in real time and pivot their strategies on the fly.

With advanced ad technology and real-time analytics, marketers can access granular results and optimization suggestions, making it possible to shift budgets mid-campaign to the channels, networks, or shows delivering the strongest performance. The benefits of partnering with a platform like Simulmedia’s TV+, is that advertisers can see granular campaign results and receive suggestions for optimization, enabling them to shift budgets mid-campaign to the channels, networks, or shows delivering the best results.

Real-time analytics, outcome-based KPIs, and platform-specific insights are no longer nice-to-haves. They’re essential tools for ensuring your upfront dollars work as hard as they can. Flexibility is no longer a fringe benefit—it’s a requirement.

Simulmedia: Powering the Upfront Revolution

Simulmedia sits at the heart of this digital transformation, offering advertisers a unified platform to plan, buy, and measure across linear TV, streaming, and even gaming. Here’s how Simulmedia’s core strengths align with the needs of today’s advertisers:

• Cross-Platform Reach: Direct integrations with 70+ major networks and digital platforms, reaching 200 million households.
• AI-Driven Precision: Patented algorithms ingest billions of viewership events to target audiences with unparalleled accuracy.
• Unified Measurement: Partnerships with best-in-class data and measurement providers deliver 98% accuracy in performance reporting.
• Real-Time Optimization: Automated, data-informed media planning enables mid-flight pivots to maximize ROI.
• Privacy-Safe Data Collaboration: Open platform and clean room integrations empower secure, actionable cross-platform insights.

The platform’s holistic planning, activation, and measurement capabilities enable brands to maximize every dollar, delivering stronger ROI and more meaningful audience connections.

In Conclusion

This year’s upfronts are not just evolving—they’re being redefined. The shift to more digital is happening now, driven by fragmentation, smarter data usage, privacy innovations, and the demand for agility.

For marketers, the opportunity is clear, and they must partner with platforms that offer reach, insight, and flexibility. Simulmedia stands ready to help advertisers navigate this transformation—not just by surviving the shift, but by thriving within it.

The age of the static, locked-in media buy is over. Welcome to the era of dynamic, data-driven upfronts.