One of the time-honored traditions of the 50-year-old TV upfronts has been to declare them dead. And yet, every year, the same star-studded spectacles return, along with networks and media buyers eager to lock in deals before Cannes.
While it’s tempting to knock the annual advertising marketplace as the “same-old, same-old,” Travis Scoles, EVP of Advanced Advertising at Paramount, is quick to argue that not only is the TV upfront as relevant as ever, it’s actually transformed into something fundamentally different from its origins of three major networks and primetime broadcasting.
“The upfronts have evolved quietly in a way that we haven’t really talked about,” Scoles told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Beet.TV Leadership Summit at Omnicom Media Group. “Traditionally it was always about how do we lock in the right amount of inventory at the right price? And that was kind of it.”
The 2025 upfront negotiations have spun off in multiple directions. “It’s about partnership and innovation and what can we do together,” Scoles added. “We have this data asset and we have that data asset, so the question now is, ‘How can we think about this in a broader context of our businesses together?’”
This shift has turned the upfronts from a transactional period into strategic planning sessions. “We get to sit down with our buyers and have honest conversations about our businesses together and kind of plan for where we want those to go,” Scoles said.
Beyond GRPs
The evolution of the upfronts reflects a deeper change in how advertisers think about performance. Advancements in measurement now allow buyers to understand how media moves products off shelves rather than simply delivering against traditional media metrics like “eyeballs” and gross ratings points.
“They care about how much product they’re selling,” Scoles said. “They care less about things like GRPs.”
This shift is driving the strategic evolution of upfront conversations. “All of a sudden people aren’t just talking about how they get more ads for the same dollar,” he said, suggesting it’s about “how can I make those ads work better?”
Redefining premium
Paramount’s “Premium Redefined” initiative responds to these fundamental changes in how consumers buy products and consume media.
“We need to be able to measure it and to react to it and to provide our advertisers with solutions that drive results for their end businesses as opposed to just a stock KPI report,” Scoles said.
The new definition of premium focuses on effectiveness rather than traditional quality markers. “It’s what can I do with the media that I have and how can I tell my story in the right way and the right channels to ultimately move consumer behavior,” he said.
Attention as a middle metric
While the industry has buzzed about attention and engagement metrics, Scoles views them differently. He considers them “middle metrics” that help explain why media works rather than determining if it works.
“For the first time, we’re really hyper-focused on actually knowing if [a campaign] is working and that’s where we should be investing,” he said.
The ability to hold multiple devices simultaneously has fundamentally changed what engagement even means. “By capturing the end state, by understanding what media is working, how it’s moving consumer behavior, we can then contextualize all of this other information as consumers evolve,” Scoles said.
These new approach is now shaping Paramount’s content strategy. The company is focusing on quality rather than library size, pointing to its eight of the top 10 shows on broadcast television and three of the top 10 on streaming.
“We have these large hyper premium pieces of content,” Scoles said. “They engage consumers, they bring them into that world, they bring them into that narrative, and that’s what people are responding really, really well to.”
The power of ‘live’
Live sports represents the ultimate expression of collective viewing experiences. Scoles recalled someone describing sports as “the greatest expression of reality television,” noting how these live moments bring people together for shared emotional experiences.
But it’s not just sports. Paramount sees similar patterns with appointment television dramas. “People come together for appointment television on a Sunday to find out who dies this week,” he said. “They enjoy that together and they experience it together, and they have that sort of joint emotional moment, and they can talk about that the next day.”
This concurrent reach and emotional connection is where brands can be most effective with their messaging. Shows like Tracker and Matlock move more than 10 million viewers a night on broadcast television, creating what Scoles called “emotional connection points.”
“That’s where you can be most effective delivering brand messaging,” Scoles said.
You’re watching “The 2025 TV Upfronts in Review: A Beet.TV Leadership Summit with Omnicom Media Group, Presented by Index Exchange and The Trade Desk.” For more videos from this summit, please visit this page.
