Los Angeles, CA – May 02: WGA members take a selfie before heading to the picket line on the first day of their strike in front of Paramount Studios in Hollywood on May 2, 2023. The union were unable to reach a last minute-accord with the major studios on a new three-year contract to replace one that expired Monday night. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Genaro Molina | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
Media companies making their pitches to advertisers this week will have to do their best to overcome a lot of noise in the industry.
The advertising market has been soft since last summer, and companies are also cutting costs as they look to make their streaming businesses profitable.
Meanwhile, the Hollywood writers’ strike is sure to play a role in the conversation, especially if picketers show up this week outside the annual advertising sales events known as Upfronts. Some of them already did at the so-called Newfronts, which are similar events focused only on streaming.
Kicking off the week will be Comcast‘s NBCUniversal Upfront, which saw some last minute changes when global ad chief Linda Yaccarino resigned last week before Twitter hired her to replace owner Elon Musk as CEO.
Streaming remains a prime topic of discussion, especially as ad-supported tiers have taken on more importance in the face of slowing subscriber growth.
And franchise content is likely to be a big presence as media companies have leaned into series and films with track records for keeping viewers around.
Here’s a look at what’s in store for Upfronts.
Writers’ strike worries
Members of the Writers Guild of America stopped working and headed to the picket lines earlier this month, halting production on films and television shows.
Media executives say the strike will have no immediate effect on programming slates, but that could change depending on how long the strike lasts.
“There are certainly additional elements of fluidity this year, like the WGA strike, that are top of mind for advertisers and make flexibility even more critical in this year’s negotiations,” said Amy Leifer, chief advertising sales officer at DirecTV. “Even if there is a halt of scripted TV production due to the writer’s strike, we know that viewers are still going to consume TV content.”
That will likely mean more emphasis on live content, such as sports and news, if the strike drags on. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said he doesn’t expect his company to be affected by the writers’ strike given its sports and news-heavy slate.
While this helps the traditional media companies like Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal, which all have robust sports and news offerings, it could weigh on the entertainment-only networks, as well as streaming services.
The immediate concern for Upfronts, however, could be if picketers post up in front of the events. Many of Hollywood’s top talent, especially late-night talk show hosts who have already seen their shows halted, have shown support for the writers. Often, these comedians and talk show hosts take part in Upfronts.
During the Newfronts recently, picketers stood out front of the events. Netflix, which is having its inaugural Upfront this week since it recently instituted an ad-supported tier, has reportedly opted to make its presentation virtual-only.
Soft advertising market
Media executives across the board aren’t as bullish on the advertising market as they were a year ago.
“It feels like a party here,” then-NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said at the Cannes Lions advertising conference last year, held a little more than a month after upfront presentations. “I don’t know if that’s because most of you are out for the first time in a long time or because we’re in the south of France in June, but no, it doesn’t feel like a down market.”
By November, the advertising market collapsed amid surging interest rates and recession fears.
“The advertising market is very weak,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav in a November investor conference. “It’s weaker than it was during Covid.”
In recent months, executives have noted a limited recovery.
“The overall entertainment advertising marketplace has been challenging,” Disney Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy said last week during Disney’s second-quarter earnings conference call. “While the weakness has moderated somewhat, we anticipate that some softness may continue into the back half of the fiscal year.”
NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney all reported dips of between 6% and 15% in TV advertising revenue in the first quarter.
Media executives’ messaging to advertisers could center around value this year, particularly as companies continue to offer more content on their streaming services. Warner Bros. Discovery will showcase Max, its new combined HBO Max-Discovery+ product that launches later this month. Disney announced last week it’s adding a feature to allow Hulu programming within Disney+, a change Chief Executive Bob Iger said “will provide greater opportunities for advertisers” when it rolls out later this year.
Cost cutting
While media executives will try to convince advertisers to maximize their spending, they’ll be pushing that narrative while making fewer shows. Disney said last week it plans to produce less content in the coming year. Warner Bros. Discovery has spent the past year eliminating content from Max to cut costs.
“It’s critical we rationalize the volume of content we’re creating and what we’re spending to produce our content,” Disney’s Iger said.
The cost-cutting efforts are driven by an urgent motivation to make streaming profitable. Paramount Global, NBCUniversal and Disney have all promised streaming will stop losing money by next year. Warner Bros. Discovery said earlier this month its U.S. streaming business will be profitable in 2023 — a year ahead of schedule.
“The key here is our U.S. streaming business is no longer a bleeder,” Zaslav said. “It’s hard to run a business when you have a big bleeder.”
Still, the upfronts are a time to showcase content. If the investor messaging is centered around cutting the fat, the ad buyer message will around showcasing the quality of existing franchises.
Franchise frenzy
If one thing is for certain, the media networks and their streaming counterparts will showcase slates with a heavy emphasis on franchises.
It’s been a theme at Upfronts in recent years. During last year’s NBCUniversal Upfront, late-night host and “Saturday Night Live” alum Seth Meyers made jabs about the schedule of spinoffs and reboots being presented.
“I don’t need to tell you that the last two years have been transformative not just for the TV business but across all industries. We needed to be inventive, agile, forward-facing, and yet and this is still how we are doing upfronts,” Meyers said last year. “That’s not to say that NBC is not embracing the future — this next year promises exciting new shows and ideas like ‘Law & Order,’ ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,’ ‘Night Court’ and ‘Quantum Leap.'”
Franchises attract a large swath of audience demand for both Hollywood films – which are an important part of the programming slate for streamers like Disney+, Paramount+ and Peacock – as well as TV franchises, according to data from Parrot Analytics.
“Hollywood has been recycling in the last 12 to 13 years as other content has failed to break out,” said Brandon Katz, an entertainment industry strategist at Parrot.
The logo of the streaming service Paramount+ on a logo wall at the Paramount+ launch event. (recrop) The streaming service Paramount+ is now available in Germany.
Jörg Carstensen | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Paramount, in particular, has seen a big reliance on franchises, especially for its Paramount+ streaming service. Star Trek series content accounted for 32.4% of Paramount+’s U.S. audience demand in 2022, while Yellowstone spinoffs made up 11.4%, according to Parrot.
Last week, Paramount’s CBS broadcast network announced three new series for next season – one being “Matlock,” a reboot of the late 1980s-90s series that will star Academy Award-winning actress Kathy Bates, and the other, “Elisabeth,” which is based on a character from “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight” franchise.
Disney+ has heavily relied on series stemming from its Marvel and Star Wars libraries. However, Parrot Analytics found there was a downtick in U.S. demand for Marvel content in late 2022, likely due to the mixed reception its recent series have received.
The shift to streaming
Ad-supported streaming will be an even bigger part of the conversation this year.
With cord-cutting accelerating – overall pay-TV subscribers were down 3% this past quarter, “universally worsening,” according to Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall – digital advertising is likely to take a bigger piece of the pie.
“It’s a pretty unmistakable trend where linear TV continues to fall and digital video and connected TVs are rising to fill the gap,” said Paul Verna, a principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. Advertisers are expected to spend $12.48 billion on digital media during the Upfronts and Newfronts this year, a 28% increase over last year, Verna added.
U.S. TV ad spending during the Upfronts is expected to drop by 3.6% to $18.64 billion for the 2023-24 season, according to Insider Intelligence, evidence the market has stopped growing on the traditional TV side while more dollars shift toward digital.
Netflix and Disney+ launched ad-supported tiers for their services late last year. With subscriber growth stagnating for streaming, and companies pushing toward streaming profitability, executives hope the cheaper options will retain or bring in customers.
Disney recently said it was relying on its ad-supported option to help make a profit with its streaming offerings. The company will be adding Hulu content to Disney+, which Iger said was “a logical progression of our DTC offerings that will provide greater opportunities for advertisers.”
Price increases for ad-free options, to boost revenue for these businesses, could also push customers to cheaper options with ads.
Paramount+ and NBCUniversal’s Peacock have offered ad-supported tiers since each launched. While Peacock held a Newfront presentation to showcase its content, the streaming service will be a key part of NBCUniversal’s Upfront on Monday.
“Just a year ago, if you looked at the composition of Paramount’s ad revenue, about 25% went to digital,” said David Lawenda, Paramount’s chief digital advertising officer. “Now it’s about 40%. That’s 40 cents of every dollar going to digital.”
Free, ad-supported platforms like Paramount’s Pluto and Fox’s Tubi will also see more advertising dollars come their way.
“We’re looking forward to Tubi being a central part of our upfront negotiations,” Murdoch said recently during Fox earnings. “It’s clearly not only a strategic driver for us. It’s been an important driver going forward.”
These free, ad-supported streaming television, or FAST, services have seen explosive growth. They also experienced an increase in viewership during the height of the pandemic, when productions were halted and there was a lack of new content. If the writers’ strike continues, that could be the case once again.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks next to SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son after U.S. President Donald Trump delivered remarks on AI infrastructure at the Roosevelt Room in the White House in Washington on Jan. 21, 2025.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
OpenAI said last week that it would restructure in a format that allows its non-profit entity to retain ultimate control, a plan that on Tuesday received the blessing of one of the U.S. artificial intelligence startup’s biggest backers — Japanese giant SoftBank.
The endorsement of SoftBank — the first time the company has publicly green lit the plan — is key because the Japanese firm’s $30 billion investment in OpenAI announced this year was contingent on a change in structure.
In March, OpenAI closed a $40 billion funding round, receiving $30 billion from SoftBank. But if OpenAI doesn’t restructure into a for-profit entity by Dec. 31, SoftBank has previously said it could reduce its portion of the financing to $20 billion.
OpenAI announced this month that it would not fully turn into a for-profit entity after pressure from civic leaders and former employees. Instead, the non-profit arm would retain control of the company, while the limited liability company, which handles all of the business operations, would turn into a public benefit corporation. That means this division will have the ability to generate profit, but will also focus on social good.
The AI startup was originally looking to remove the control of the non-profit, a plan that drew criticism from many in the tech space, including rival and initial OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk.
Since the non-profit would retain control, and the original restructure plan was ditched, it was unclear if OpenAI’s major investors were on board.
But SoftBank’s finance chief Yoshimitsu Goto said during an earnings press conference on Tuesday that “nothing has really changed.”
“I don’t think that’s the wrong direction … that’s something that we expected,” Goto said, according to a company translation of his comments in Japanese.
He reiterated that OpenAI needs to complete the restructure by the end of this year.
There could still be stumbling blocks along the way. Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s biggest investors, has not approved the restructure, according to a Bloomberg report earlier this month. The Financial Times on Sunday reported that OpenAI and Microsoft are rewriting the terms of their multibillion-dollar partnership. Microsoft is the key holdout to OpenAI’s restructure plan, the FT added.
SoftBank’s Goto did not mention any other companies, but acknowledged that OpenAI has many stakeholders.
“Our conversation is based on the assumption that the reorganization will take place. There are different staekholders however and some people may intervene in this project and this may not go as smooth as we hope,” Goto said.
“But that’s out of our control. We will wait and see what happens.”
Crypto.com logo displayed on a phone screen with representation of cryptocurrencies.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Dubai’s Department of Finance announced a partnership with crypto platform Crypto.com that will allow government service fees to be paid with cryptocurrencies.
The memorandum of understanding between Dubai government officials and Mohammed Al Hakim, president of Crypto.com UAE, was signed Monday on the sidelines of the Dubai FinTech Summit.
Government officials said in a press release that the partnership will help achieve the “Dubai Cashless Strategy,” which seeks to solidify Dubai’s status as a leading digital city. The strategy aims to reach 90% cashless transactions across Dubai’s public and private sectors by 2026.
Once technical arrangements for the initiative are finalized, individuals and “businesses customers of government entities” will be able to pay service fees through digital wallets on Crypto.com.
“The platform will securely convert these payments into Emirati dirhams and transfer them to Dubai Finance accounts, ensuring a streamlined, secure, and innovative payment framework,” Dubai Finance added.
Crypto.com’s Al Hakim called the initiative a “truly global first programme.” However, the announcement did not clarify what types of digital currencies the department of finance would accept, or for which types of government fees covered by the agreement.
Crypto.com and Dubai Finance did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
Crypto.com first received a license for its Dubai entity to offer regulated virtual asset service activities in 2023. Last month, the company said Dubai’s virtual asset regulatory body had also issued a limited license to offer derivatives.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son delivers remarks next to U.S. President Donald Trump at an ‘Investing in America’ event in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 30, 2025.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Softbank‘s Vision Fund business on Tuesday posted a loss in the fiscal year ended March as it booked slowing gains at its massive tech investment arm.
SoftBank said it notched a gain on investment at its Vision Funds of 434.9 billion yen in the fiscal year, a 40% fall from the 724.3 billion yen booked in the previous year.
In its fiscal fourth quarter — the three months ended March — SoftBank’s Vision Funds segment recorded a 26.1 billion yen gain, helped by a rise in the value of TikTok owner ByteDance.
The Vision Fund segment overall logged a pretax loss of 115.02 billion yen ($777.7 mllion) versus a profit of 128.2 billion yen in the previous fiscal year.
For the latest fiscal year, SoftBank saw gains on its investments in Chinese ridehailing company Didi as well as South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang. However, the performance of its investment arm was hurt by a drop in value of companies including AutoStore.
The Vision Funds are a key focus for investors who are looking for signs of improvement at SoftBank’s huge investment arm, after it swung to a surprise loss in the company’s fiscal third quarter.
SoftBank’s investment division can be inconsistent, as it is driven by changes in public and private financial markets.
SoftBank’s stock is down about 17% this year as volatility in financial markets and concerns about the macroeconomic environment continues to weigh on the company.
SoftBank hits back at Stargate funding report
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has sought to position company as a key player in artificial intelligence through various investments and acquisitions. The firm owns the majority of semiconductor designer Arm and announced plans this year to acquire server chip designer Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion. Ampere’s semiconductors are designed to run AI applications.
One of SoftBank’s biggest AI bets has been on OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. SoftBank invested $30 billion in OpenAI as part of a broader $40 billion financing round in March that valued the startup at $300 billion.
Softbank is also involved in Stargate, a joint venture that was unveiled by U.S. President Donald Trump in January, calling for hundreds of billions of dollars of investment into AI infrastructure.
There are still questions about how SoftBank plans to finance these ventures and whether it will need to sell down some of its holdings in companies like Arm.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg had on Monday reported that dozens of financial players are reassessing investment in data centers due to growing economic volatility, and SoftBank has yet to come up with a financing template for Stargate.
Yoshimitsu Goto, chief finance officer at SoftBank, said during a Tuesday press conference that media reports of banks hesitating to fund SoftBank’s efforts are not true.
“We are very much making progress,” Goto said.
He added there are around 100 proposals being made for sites to build data centers as part of Stargate, with the first facilities likely to be in Texas.
SoftBank swings to profit
SoftBank posted its first annual profit in four years at 1.15 trillion yen.
While the Vision Fund was an overall drag on profit, it was a big gain in SoftBank’s older investments in Alibaba, T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom, that helped drive its overall profit.
Arm and SoftBank’s telecommunications business also contributed positively to the group’s overall profitability.