Strike Out: Ad Spend Toward New Programming Sinks to Pandemic Levels

As the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes continue, the work stoppages have made an immediate impact on ad spending — from new vs. repeat entertainment programming to upfront discussions.

How much of an impact has this had? The owner of Standard Media Index, Lumina, and SQAD finds that June 2023 marked the third lowest month in nearly seven years for proportion of spend against new entertainment programming (20.9%) versus repeat entertainment programming (79%).

It is the lowest dip in share since the pandemic.

The data is courtesy of Guideline, which notes, “Similar to the pandemic when production halted, the industry is witnessing a ripple effect where over time there will be less content for media owners to deliver audiences, advertisers that see less impact from their advertising investments, and less capital for media companies to put back into new production, technologies, and development.”

As a result, ad spending against new entertainment and repeat entertainment has rapidly shifted. Between May-June 2023 alone, new entertainment programming shifted 10% points to 21% of spend share. To provide some context, July and August 2020 saw new entertainment programming spend drop to 18.5% and 20.7%, respectively – and the average share of spend in the last 6.5 years for New vs. Repeat entertainment programming is 31% and 69%, respectively.

Guideline VP of North America Media Owners Darrick Li commented, “We can expect to see a shift in favor of Upfront buying – but it may be less pronounced. The strikes come at a time of historically lower new entertainment programming, and advertisers will want to have (more) flexibility to tap into unsold inventory and/or place their investments closer to the air date in order to mitigate risk tied to a short runway of new content. As a result, we may see media owners respond amicably, as this would give them a better understanding of the reach and target audience composition of their programming – which would ultimately be reflected in ‘Scatter Premium’ pricing.”