AMC Networks is choosing to host an in-person event during the spring upfront season, confirming plans for a presentation for about 200 to 250 guests.
The event, slated for Tuesday, April 18, at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, will resemble last year’s pitch to advertisers at Peak, a restaurant near the top of a Hudson Yards skyscraper. AMC Networks has entered some choppy waters of late, with the abrupt departure last November of CEO Christina Spade after just three months in the job. James Dolan, whose family controls most of the company’s shares, was named interim executive chairman after the company signaled its intent to lay off 20% of its workforce, citing ongoing cord-cutting and other economic pressures.
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The annual TV upfront ritual, a blitz of in-person presentations for ad buyers with billions of ad dollars in the balance, is being evaluated across the media business. The upfronts have started to look different in recent years due to larger shifts in the media businesses and the migration to streaming, as well as budget limitations and the lingering effects of Covid. Paramount Global, which inherited one of the fixtures of broadcast upfront week in the longtime CBS event at Carnegie Hall, opted to cancel the show this year in favor of smaller get-togethers with ad buyers. (Netflix, which is now in the ad game, grabbed the former CBS slot.) NBCUniversal has said it will hold its annual upfront at Radio City Music Hall in May, but Fox Corp., Disney and the CW all have yet to specify plans.
AMC Networks will follow the April presentation with a series of in-person and virtual agency presentations in the weeks to follow. Among the key properties the company will showcase are new spin-offs in The Walking Dead Universe, the growing Immortal Universe around Anne Rice and Lucky Hank with Bob Odenkirk and Mireille Enos. Publicity for upcoming AMC Networks programming kicked in last week at the TCA Winter Press Tour in Pasadena. Franchises on WE tv, the company’s Content Room, a collection of FAST channels and technology like addressable advertising and programmatic buying will also get plugs during the upfront.
“We are looking forward to the most innovative and future-facing upfront in our history, with a focus on partnering with marketers around targeted audiences, creative ad products and an exciting slate of high-quality programming that will build on our proven ability to engage passionate fan communities around compelling franchises and universes,” Chief Commercial Officer Kim Kelleher said in a statement. “Our company has a long tradition of being proudly ad-supported and delivering industry-first opportunities that leverage our great content for our partners.”
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