The Re-Reinvention of Television: Streamers Dust Off Some of the Old Broadcast Playbook for a New Era
variety.comupfronts presentations this week, they’re encountering something unexpected: The streamers that had been quick to destroy the old network TV formula are now looking to emulate it.
That includes embracing TV commercials, which is why outlets like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video will be present at upfronts week, a four-day marathon in which the largest networks make glitzy presentations to advertisers at venues like Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.
Streamers have joined the fray, doing exactly what the Big 4 networks have done for decades: touting their wares to the advertising buyers who spend billions of dollars in TV spots every year. (CBS gave up its traditional upfronts presentation last year, so they’ll be missing out.) That’s not the only playbook from the previous TV era that the streamers are dusting off and reinventing for this new age.
While it’s not the same as the old cable bundle — a dual revenue stream that the congloms feasted on for decades — the recent news that Disney and Warner Bros.
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