As WGA picketers and anti-Fox protesters crowded the doorway of the corporate’s upfront presentation Monday afternoon at New York’s Manhattan Heart, the present went on as scheduled.
With none point out of the occasions occurring exterior the venue, the 50-minute presentation closely centered on Fox’s unscripted and sports activities content material—as the corporate returned to a stay format for the primary time since earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic.
As an alternative of main with its upcoming primetime slate, introduced earlier within the day, Fox kicked off the presentation with FAST service Tubi—which exited NewFronts week to be able to play a bigger function in its father or mother firm’s upfront pitch.
“We went all in on AVOD and invested in Tubi,” mentioned advert gross sales chief Marianne Gambelli, who famous that the streamer—which now has 64 million month-to-month energetic customers—has seen 44% year-over-year progress, and is now represented in Nielsen’s streaming report The Gauge.
“We didn’t cancel, we didn’t transfer out of upfront week, we’re right here for you,” Gambelli added, taking a couple of photographs at rivals like Netflix and Paramount.
Leisure took a smaller stage presence than regular on this yr’s upfront presentation due to the strike, however the firm nonetheless touted its two new drama sequence Doc and HI-Surf with sizzle reels—despite the fact that neither sequence is in manufacturing but. Fox has delayed the discharge of its full fall schedule till there’s extra readability with the continued strike.
“This a part of the present has modified fairly a bit, however don’t fear, I shouldn’t have a brand new present on Fox this fall,” mentioned Suzanne Sullivan, evp of advert gross sales at Fox Leisure, referring to the dearth of scripted expertise onstage. As is the case at most upfront week occasions, they declined to take part in solidarity with the hanging writers.
Fox additionally has two new unscripted sequence on the best way, and the corporate mentioned it’s well-positioned for an ongoing writers strike with its unscripted slate.
