Category: In the News

OK, ad marketplace — media buyers, marketers and all associated media players — what you just experienced this past week wasn’t an upfront. It was a sportsfront.

Sports content, both live games and all manner of shows around sports, dominated the upfront presentations like no other source of programming. From new NBA and NFL rights holders, to sports-themed series, to Michael Jordan returning to TV in some vaguely-defined capacity with NBC Universal’s NBA coverage, sports dominated all the upfront conversations and even some of the prior week’s NewFronts. 

This is a member-exclusive article from Digiday. Continue reading it on digiday.com and subscribe to continue reading content like this.

,Read More

After more than two decades in the holdco machine, Marcy Samet knew that striking out on her own likely meant a one-way ticket. For years, the industry ran on a reliable cycle: execs left bloated networks, built indie shops then cashed out by selling right back into the machine. But that cycle’s losing steam. The exits keep coming but the re-entries aren’t always part of the plan anymore.

“There are more options open now for people like me,” said Samet, who left her role as a growth specialist at IPG last summer. 

By “people like me”, she means the wave of senior execs leaving the holdcos in droves. Some jumped, others were pushed — many under compromised agreements that allow a push to look like a jump. Whatever the backstory, the draw of starting something new has never felt strong. Not because returning is too cutthroat or bruising, but because — for the first time in a long time — it feels like building something that can stand on its own is actually possible.

Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.

,Read More