In the television industry, an upfront is a gathering at the start of important advertising sales periods, held by television network executives and attended by major advertisers and the media). It is so named because of its main purpose, to allow marketers to buy television commercial airtime "up front", or several months before the television season begins). The first upfront presentation was made by ABC in 1962, in an attempt to find out how advertisers felt about the networks new shows).
During the upfronts, advertisers are given an opportunity to purchase advertising up front, before the season begins and advertising opportunities become expensive and limited. Many advertisers use the upfronts to negotiate particularly favorable spots for their advertisements. The focal point of the upfronts is the revelation of new series. During presentations for new series, executives typically show clips from the series, talk about the direction the first season will head in, and sometimes introduce some of the actors.
The TV advertising upfront cycle typically takes place in late spring and runs through the summer, typically wrapping up by the end of August. However, the cycle’s window has been expanding in recent years. Some buyers and sellers have begun their internal upfront preparations as early as October of the preceding year, and some buyers and sellers start their preliminary negotiations in February. The TV advertising upfront is an annual period of time in which advertisers and their agencies negotiate and sign year-long deals with TV networks as well as connected TV platform and streaming service owners to commit to spend an agreed-upon amount of money to buy ads on the latter companies’ traditional TV networks and/or streaming properties.
In summary, upfronts in TV are annual events where television network executives present their upcoming lineups of shows to major advertisers and the media, and advertisers commit to spending an agreed-upon amount of money to buy ads on the networks traditional TV networks and/or streaming properties).
