The DVR has been lingering in the background of the upfront this year as agencies and networks jockey for their respective positions concerning the impact of the device on advertising sales.
Last year the inclusion of counting DVR viewing was rejected by the agencies, as there was no surety of whether a commercial was being watched or not.
During the year Nielsen developed a way of tracking the vewing of commercials on DVRs, so there will be a more accurate measurement of actual viewers of commercials.
Even so, I don't think things are quite in place yet for total acceptance this year.
Walter Podrazik, TV historian and co-author of "Watching TV: Six Decades of American Television, says, "Because that's going to tell you the power of that particular show and that particular venue for placing ads. And the ads are going to be different on the broadcast compared with on-demand platforms. It only makes sense that this way of viewing ratings is going to become the norm. If not this year, it's pretty darn close to happening."
With or without the DVR the upfront is going to be pretty interesting this year in seeing which companies partake or don't partake. The networks can't assume participation anymore like last year when Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) didn't participate at all in the upfront.
This year could bring the same reaction from other companies. There are so many new opportunities online that they don't want to commit too much to the upfront and then be sorry later with their budgets spent. This will probably become a way of doing business, if it isn't already.
Most predict that the upfront won't grow at all this year over the nearly $9 million spend last year.
For those that do participate in the upfront, it is increasingly becoming a customized process based upon each individual show determined case-by-case.
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