A+E Networks Upfront Emphasizes Power of Linear TV, Total Audience Metric Shift

After the pandemic forced A+E Networks to jettison its upfront event plans at the 11th hour last year, the company has returned to the upfronts this year with a virtual presentation that played up the power of linear TV as many of its rivals begin to focus on streaming—while also trying to convince marketers to change the way they have transacted business for decades. Overall, A+E Networks has slated more than 2,500 hours of new programming for the 2021-22 upfront season, with 221 movies and 70 hours of premium documentaries. That’s close to a 50% increase over its 2020-21 slate, according to Peter Olsen, evp of ad sales at A+E Networks, which was impacted by Covid-19-related production shutdowns and delays. In the presentation—which focused on A+E Networks’ top three brands: A&E, History and Lifetime—the company spotlighted a six-hour History docuseries about the history and meaning of the U.S. presidency hosted and executive produce by former President Bill Clinton that was originally announced during last year’s upfront and is now set for 2022. It also announced a two-night, four-hour documentary about Janet Jackson’s life and career that will air on both A&E and Lifetime in early 2022. A+E noted that all of its new content will premiere on its linear networks, unlike many of its bigger cable rivals, who have created their own streaming services and moved much of its top new programs to those platforms, which “is creating a lot of angst and confusion in the market,” said Olsen. “We are a company that still wholeheartedly believes in linear TV.” In other content highlights, A&E will expand its “Home Made” block, following in the steps of networks like HGTV, with 900 hours of new programming in the home improvement genre. “We’re going to have a lot more original content in that because we’ve seen a tremendous amount of interest, both in viewership and the economy, around home,” said Olsen. The network also picked up a pair of documentaries: Right to Offend: The Black Comedy Revolution (working title) and The Secret Origins of Hip-Hop. History is extending its “That Built” franchise, executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, with an upcoming slate that includes The Titans That Built America (debuting May 31), The Toys That Built America, The Machines That Built America and The Engineering That Built the World. The network also has greenlit Fight the Power: The Protests That Changed America from executive producer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And Lifetime signed Reba McEntire to star and produce a new Christmas movie for the network’s It’s a Wonderful Lifetime slate, as well as a non-holiday movie in development for 2022. “Our ongoing efforts to launch and invest in best-in-class original programming for our linear properties, as well as further expanding our 360-experiences, demonstrates a deep commitment to being available wherever and however viewers want to be entertained, whether through high-performing podcasts, virtual experiences and digital multiplatform content,” Paul Buccieri, A+E Networks group president, said in a statement. Shifting to total audience Last month, Olsen said that he and his ad sales team will move to transact on a total audience currency—one that accounts for all adults 18 and up—instead of traditional demographics like adults 18-49 and 25-54, in a dramatic shift that it will push for during the 2021-22 upfront talks. Pointing to research noting that one in three U.S. adults is 55 or older, and that group accounts for $3.4 trillion in annual spending, Olsen told Adweek last month that marketers and publishers have been “undervaluing the 55-plus audience. … It’s an audience with money to spend, a willingness to respond to marketing messages, and then there’s a change in video consumption patterns that doesn’t allow the old construct to work anymore.” Early conversations with agency leads and clients about total audience “have gone pretty well out of the gate,” said Olsen, but “there’s a lot of work to do.” The ad sales chief is encouraged that “legacy clients want to understand how the direct-to-consumer clients are going to market differently. … They’re all realizing there’s a different world out there. People are marketing differently and purchasing differently,” he said. “The pandemic accelerated those changes, but we don’t believe they’re going back to where they are. So I think you’re going to see a pretty radically different TV economy.” Last year, in the chaotic early months of the pandemic, flexibility was the big buzzword in upfront talks with clients. A+E Networks is still open to those discussions this year, provided clients are similarly receptive to its total audience push. “We're certainly willing to continue to be more flexible,” said Olsen, but “we need to value every consumer that we bring to you.” Olsen hopes to secure more partnerships along the lines of December’s A Recipe for Seduction, a KFC branded content mini-movie—starring Mario Lopez as Colonel Harland Sanders—that aired on Lifetime and spoofed the network’s original movie tropes. “We continue to believe that when you put together everything the medium can bring to market”—including audience targeting and creative amplification—“it really works for clients,” he said. “We are absolutely looking to do more.” Keeping it short Unlike last March, when the pandemic forced A+E to pull the plug on its upfront plans just two weeks prior to its scheduled in-person event to reconfigure its upfront plans on the fly, the company had several months to plan this year’s virtual presentation. While the event was packed with A+E Networks execs and talent, it was also brief by upfront standards, clocking in at just 33 minutes. “That’s been a big learning for this year: We all can talk less. We’ve learned to talk less and get our point across better,” said Olsen.