Each year, advertisers commit billions of dollars through the TV upfront, and measurement giant Nielsen is looking to help guide those budgets even more.
Today, Nielsen released a new upfront planning guide, which takes a more granular view of ad-supported TV viewership trends across key audience demos and sports. According to Brian Hughes, Nielsen data communications director, the hope is that companies can use the insights to help strategize and allocate their upfront budgets.
Hughes has first-hand knowledge of the upfront trenches, spending nearly two decades at MAGNA, where he helped co-develop upfront strategy. He noted that the data and insights are meant to serve as thought starters around the upfront, helping marketers take advantage of viewership trends.
“The idea is really to get them thinking about it,” Hughes said. “I’m really hoping it gives people ideas and helps them want to go deep with the data and figure out the best way forward.”
Diving into the data
Among the major findings from its upfront planning study, Nielsen found that linear, FAST, and AVOD attract different audience profiles, and advertisers should approach different viewing options as an integrated ecosystem. So, depending on who advertisers want to reach, each has opportunities.
According to Nielsen, Adults 18-49 spend 63.8% of their TV time with ad-supported TV, and streaming accounts for 66.7% of that time.
Meanwhile, within streaming, 81.1% of Adults 18-49 viewership occurs on ad-supported tiers of platforms such as YouTube, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Peacock, and Paramount+. The remaining 19% goes to FAST, which a Nielsen spokesperson also noted offers more diverse viewership and captures growing attention from viewers aged 35-64.
Non-FAST AVOD, including platforms like Disney+ and Netflix, continue to reach the youngest viewers, “effectively capturing the 18 to 34 and 2 to 17 age groups,” according to Nielsen.
Even with all that streaming, 33.4% of total time remains on linear, which Nielsen says is “critical” to live sports, events, and news.
Scoring with sports
Nielsen said publishing platforms also have distinct audiences, and that sports accounted for nearly 30% of all ad-supported TV viewing among Adults 25-54 in Q4 2025.
Looking at the specific platforms, the measurement company said NBC’s NBA games have a broad reach among viewers, and Prime Video’s games skew towards “younger digital natives who watch less linear TV.”
Meanwhile, the platforms also have different viewer compositions.
Prime Video has a higher percentage of Adults 18-34 in its audience, but NBC attracts a comparable overall number of Adults 18-34. In addition, ABC and ESPN have the highest viewership in the demo.
On to the upfront
