A Mickey Mouse marching band, Cowboys cheerleaders and Seth MacFarlane singing — oh my! Last week, Disney, Netflix, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon and YouTube wrapped up their annual upfront presentations to Madison Avenue, leaving advertisers to now face a difficult decision: Where and how to place their bets and allocate their budgets.
That choice will be particularly complicated this year with buyers reevaluating decisions in the face of President Donald Trump’s rapidly-evolving tariff policies. The declining linear TV business is also grappling with more pressure than ever as viewers continue flocking to streaming, a viewership model that’s increasingly popular but has yet to provide the same consistent financial returns that traditional TV did in the past. Add in the appetite around sports and other live events — programming that viewers still prefer consuming live, which benefits buyers — and this year’s presentations felt hungrier than most.
When it came to the presentations themselves, audiences were treated to the normal sneak peeks of upcoming content, such as Noah Hawley’s “Alien: Earth” and the movie “Wicked: For Good,” as well as musical performances by artists like Lizzo and Lady Gaga. But there were also clear trends: an emphasis on sports, a continued push towards ad-supported streaming, ad formats incorporating artificial intelligence and making what’s old new again — including a meme-worthy rebranding for HBO’s streamer, the once and future HBO Max.
Below are some of the biggest takeaways — and most memorable moments — from this year’s presentations.
AI is all the rage
Artificial intelligence wasn’t directly discussed too often during the upfronts. But if you look under the hood of some of the biggest advertising innovations touted, it was there.
The technology was featured most prominently during the newsfronts, with Fox-owned Tubi highlighting its ShopsenseAI collaboration, an option that allows Tubi viewers to purchase what they see on their screens without ever leaving the platform, as well as an AI-powered video solution designed to connect brands to interested audiences.
Unsurprisingly, YouTube, which is owned by one of the biggest players in the AI space, showcased new ad innovations that utilized the tech, including a creator hub that uses artificial intelligence to better connect brands with creators who are already discussing their products. The company also highlighted its shoppable interface as well as a new offering that uses AI to place ads right after “peak” moments in videos.
Even during the content-focused upfronts, artificial intelligence cropped up. During Netflix’s presentation, the streamer announced that in 2026 it will implement generative AI-powered mid-roll ads and pause ads designed to better connect audiences to relevant content. Amazon will also introduce AI-generated contextual pause ads. Even older brands got in on the AI game. Before upfronts began, NBC Sports announced it will be using the AI-generated voice of late narrator Jim Fagan for its upcoming NBA coverage, marking the second time an NBCUniversal-owned property has employed an AI-generated voice for sports. (The first time was when an AI version of Al Michaels provided personalized daily recaps during the 2024 Paris Olympics.)
Long story short, AI was hot this year. But nothing was hotter than …
Sports! Sports! Sports!
Whether it was Disney with its ESPN streamer or Netflix with its Christmas Day NFL games, every company was more than happy to gloat about its sports offerings. And because live sports have become so valuable in the modern TV ecosystem, some of the biggest stars on stage were athletes, coaches and commissioners.
Naturally, NBCUniversal was the happiest to talk about the NBA given that the company spent an estimated $2.5 billion on an 11-year deal with the league, enlisting Michael Jordan as part of next season’s broadcast team.
Tom Brady, who previously signed a 10-year deal worth $375 million with Fox, appeared during the network’s presentation to boast about its NFL games and attempt to pass a ball to his former Patriots teammate Rob Gronkowski — he instead hit an audience member.
The list goes on. Amazon had Carissa Thompson, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Whitworth to discuss Thursday Night Football, while Disney brought out Saquon Barkley, Patrick Mahomes, Eli Manning and Peyton Manning after revealing the name of its standalone ESPN streaming service. Both Netflix and YouTube had appearances from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodall to talk about their respective games. Gronkowski also appeared during a MrBeast-hosted segment for YouTube. Even Warner Bros. Discovery, which lost the U.S. rights to the NBA last summer, had TNT Sports chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser tout the college football playoffs, NASCAR and tennis tournament Roland-Garros.
Branding history keeps repeating itself
Another big theme of upfront week: What’s old is new again.
The clearest example came from WBD, which revealed it was reverting the name of its streaming service back to HBO Max just two years after dropping the premium pay TV network from the title. The service’s fifth official rebrand will take place this summer.
WBD reached back into its past again for CNN. After scrapping CNN+ just one month into its launch back in 2022, WBD is now looking to bring CNN to streaming once more with a new product launching this fall as part of the network’s All Access subscription tier. Current CNN pay TV subscribers will be able to log in and access the new streaming product at no additional cost, and CNN will also continue to have a presence on HBO Max.
In addition to WBD, Disney’s ESPN finally unveiled the name for its direct-to-consumer offering launching this fall: ESPN. No plus, no All Access. Just ESPN.
And while Comcast’s cable network spinoff — Versant — may have a new name, its programming lineup feels very familiar as it mostly consists of revivals such as “Kimora: Back in the Fab Lane,” or currently existing shows like Syfy’s “The Ark.”
Streamers are all-in on their ad tiers
Last year marked a major shift in the world of TV advertising as Amazon joined the TV upfronts for the first time, while Netflix and legacy companies became more serious about their ad tiers. This year, we got to see how those investments paid off. It should be noted that all of these numbers were self reported, and there is currently no universal definition about what constitutes an ad-supported viewer.
During its presentation, Disney reported a total of 164 million monthly active users globally across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, up from 157 million in January. Meanwhile, Netflix surpassed 94 million monthly active users.
Amazon’s Prime Video claimed an ad-supported audience of more than 130 million in the U.S. alone, up from 115 million previously, with a 37% increase in monthly viewing hours. When combining the streamer with Amazon’s other owned and operated entertainment properties such as Twitch, MGM Studios, Wondery and Amazon Music, the tech giant’s entertainment portfolio reaches an average monthly ad-supported audience of more than 300 million.
WBD has a total of 122.3 million direct-to-consumer subscribers globally across Max, Discovery+ and traditional HBO cable subscriptions. It did not break out its ad-supported viewership for Max, but said the base in the U.S. has doubled in the past year, with roughly half of new subscribers choosing that option. And NBCU noted its entire portfolio reaches 286 million people a month, 95% of that ad-supported. Peacock has nearly 100 million monthly active users, according to Comcast.
Even Paramount, which skips the annual upfront presentation in favor of a series of smaller intimate gatherings in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, shared some ad updates. The company currently reaches a total of 115 million ad-supported viewers per month across its streaming footprint, ad chief John Halley told TheWrap.
These numbers are in line with the research around ad-supported streaming. According to Nielsen, 72.4% of total TV viewing was on ad-supported platforms in the first quarter of 2025, compared to 27.6% for ad-free platforms. Cable and broadcast made up roughly 28.9% and 28.7% of ad-supported viewing, respectively, while streaming accounted for the remaining 42.4%.
Dodging tariff talk
Though Trump’s tariff policies are poised to weigh on the ad market, most of the upfront presentations avoided any talk of economic uncertainty or the president whatsoever.
But there were a few exceptions, such as Disney’s presentation, where “Only Murders in the Building” star Martin Short joked, “There are no tariffs on standing ovations.” NBCUniversal ad chief Mark Marshall also jokingly took credit for the U.S. and China scaling back their tariffs on each other before striking a more serious tone about economic headwinds.
“We want to make sure that everyone is aware of the one thing that we have learned, brands who stay on the air are 98% more likely to retain their customers,” Marshall said.
While advertising executives told TheWrap that they’re taking a wait-and-see approach regarding tariffs, they’ve also been scenario planning in order to be prepared for a potential down market.
“We can’t predict the market and what the market will do,” NBCUniversal advertising and partnerships president Alison Levin said. “We are focused every day on consumer behavior and categories that we’re watching closely, but we are really focused on what we can control.”
Can you say marching bands?
Look, we don’t have any definite proof that every major marketing executive watched “Severance” Season 2. But what else explains the fact that not one, not two but three upfronts presentations featured elaborate drum lines? NBCUniversal, Disney and YouTube all brought out the Choreography and Merriment department in a way that would make Mr. Milchick proud.
Of course, there were other notable performances, like Seth MacFarlane’s big musical number for NBCUniversal, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders taking the stage to close out Netflix, Lady Gaga belting out “Abracadabra” for YouTube and Steve Aoki pumping up the crowd for Amazon. But all those marching bands really underlined how much of a priority sports, and especially football, were this year.
