What you need to know:

• TV networks are dropping big parties in favour of more reserved, intimate upfront sessions with agencies and brand marketers.
• Paramount and Seven are doing one-to-ones with networks. Nine's doing a it's a sit-down lunch for 1,500 at Sydney's Carriageworks. 
• But Foxtel is still going large with a big show at Sydney's White Bay Power House next Thursday night.
• Some buyers and brands welcome the slimmed down approach and a pitch tailored to their needs. Many agree that greater sensitivity is required given job cuts across most networks.
• But others argue that taking the show out of show biz puts the broader narrative at risk, that TV needs the extra sparkle in a challenging ad market.
• OMG's Kristiaan Kroon warns that the gap could be filled by new video players, with YouTube, TikTok and Amazon all having wooed the agency cohort with splashy events this last month. 
• He says media owners shouldn't view it as binary: "“The large upfront proposition really helps to deliver" on the broader message in market, while agency-specific sessions will cater specifically to the needs of partners and clients. 

Bar Foxtel, TV's 2025 upfront season feels much less flashy. Just as the format was imported from the US around 15 years ago, it's the US-owned Paramount that's kicked off the new downsized trend.

The Network 10 parent debuted its consortium model last October. It’s 2025 roadshow backed up that strategy, kicking things off early with a late September run. (Foxtel will follow, with Nine pitching later this month and Seven the next, while hybrid funded SBS will be hosting 500 at Sydney's Town Hall on the 30th)

Unlike former Network 10 owner ViacomCBS, which favoured a bigger bang production, Paramount’s US headquarters have historically delivered its annual pitch over a series of agency dinners.

As it’s understood, local Paramount execs opted to tweak that approach to a daytime slot in hopes of getting the more time-poor senior decision makers in the audience. So far, it appears to have worked – buyers told Mi3 they like the dialogue that goes with it.

Nine is next up to bat, with a midday event in a fortnight's time. It's a gearshift away from the fireworks and Luna Park takeovers of old though not quite the intimate approach of its peers. Mi3 understands there’ll be circa 1,500 hosted at the sit-down lunch at Sydney’s Carriageworks, with the network flying in interstate bigwigs for the cause.

Like Nine, Seven has also changed leaders, cut a swathe of jobs amid sustained market challenges, and has likewise had to manage reputational fallout.

Official invites are yet to land, but after much speculation that Seven might just call the whole thing off, national television sales director Katie Finney confirmed the network would be going down the consortium route with a series of “really intimate sessions with each agency partner and their clients” in November.  It’s the polar opposite of last year’s SXSW extravaganza.

“Deeper and more meaningful conversations” is Finney's mantra.

“We consulted with a number of our clients and partners to better understand what they wanted in an Upfronts and we heard loud and clear that October is just too busy with every media partner holding Upfronts and adding travel and events that run for hours are disruptive at the busiest time of the year.”

Saving costs or saving face?

There’s little consensus as to whether downsizing is a bid by the networks to cut costs, or if it’s more strategic than that.

It's probably somewhere in the middle, though some argue that running a series of intimate events can cost just as much as one job lot.

But signalling a more “humble” approach to market – as one exec put it – gives an indication of being able to read the room. Some suggest it could have been done earlier, and think that the switch to tailored, smaller pitches will pay off.

Per PHD Melbourne managing director Simon Lawson: “If there are going to be upfronts, then the industry needs to use them as a genuine learning opportunity as to what’s in the market and available to their clients, versus a presentation and a bit of a party.”

As Seven's Finney suggested, agency partners tend to see the whole upfronts rigmarole as a time sink – particularly those at the senior end.

The same rings true of clients, with one senior marketer telling Mi3 that those at the C-suite level don’t have time to get to all the upfronts and will typically prioritise the ones they’re already spending with – they suggest that smaller sessions where they can get one on one with network execs would prove more valuable for most.

And as one agency exec points out, the upfronts thing is a relatively new thing – prior to the last decade, networks weren’t expected to roll out the red carpet to partners and clients each year.

There’s a role for broader awareness on new programs and product announcements, they say, but networks shouldn’t be “trying to come up with things they can announce” just for the sake of it.

But nothing is black and white – and there’s TV’s longer-term narrative to consider too.

Taking the show out of showbiz

OMG chief investment officer Kristiaan Kroon takes a distinctly different view to many in the agency cohort.

Per Kroon, the “phenomenal opportunity” the upfronts format presents for Australia’s top media companies to “dominate the narrative leading into the key trading period” should not be underestimated.

He says that’s particularly true when incoming streamers and video platforms are going hard on their own narrative – YouTube, TikTok and Amazon have all put on a big show this season. And they’re all going hard to woo the agencies, getting agencies on stage and on screen for case studies with their clients.

In that context, holding back on the usual upfronts glamour could put TV networks at a “competitive disadvantage” per Kroon.

“The marketing of your business is critical,” he says. And when networks need to articulate why clients should spend their money with them “the large upfront proposition really helps to deliver on that”.

Best of both worlds

While one network insider suggested large format upfronts might not deliver on ROI unless you have something substantial to say, Kroon is skeptical.

“If as a major media owner you don’t have enough content to fill 90 minutes to sell your business, then you have bigger worries.”

In the same camp as Kroon is Foxtel Media boss Mark Frain. He says TV networks have a “responsibility to entertain our clients” off screen just as they would on screen. After all, “we’re in the entertainment industry”.

He suggests it’s also critical for the morale of the networks themselves.

“[Upfronts] are just as, if not more important, for all of the Foxtel and Foxtel Media staff to feel really proud and energised about our progress and our plans for the future,” according to Frain.

While Kroon says the broadly held view has always been that the big upfront is “the best formula” for pitching the market, he qualifies that networks should be going out to see individual agencies regardless. Per Kroon: “I don’t think it should be either-or.” .

Frain agrees. He says that Foxtel will “of course” be sending its sales teams out to the agencies and their clients in addition to Thursday night’s show. Nine will do the same.

The next six weeks or show will shed some light on which strategy best delivers.