Media companies want to win over advertisers as spending shifts towards digital technologies

This week, media giants deliver their annual pitches to advertisers amid significant industry disruption.

Hollywood screenwriters and actors’ strikes are over, which means the Upfronts are likely to be star-studded once again, major cost cutting is largely in the rearview mirror, and streaming has fully embraced advertising models. Still, this year’s Upfronts come at a time of continued industry turmoil.

“It seems like this is the moment, the moment in the context of what the next year or two years will bring” – Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during the company’s earnings call last week. “I said some time ago that this is a generational disorder.”

Here’s what topics will likely be discussed during Upfronts week, whether it takes place on stage, in the audience or in private.

Media companies just finished releasing quarterly reports that showed classic TV still lags behind streaming and digital when it comes to advertising revenue.

Conventional TV ad sales during Upfronts are expected to grow about 1% this year to $18.79 billion, according to eMarketer data. This represents an improvement over last year, when it fell about 4% to $18.64 billion.

Meanwhile, digital advertising spending during Upfronts and Newfronts events, which take place weeks before classic media events, is expected to grow nearly 32% this year to $16.45 billion, according to eMarketer.

There was an overall improvement in TV ad revenue last quarter, down 8% compared to almost 16% in the same quarter last year, according to a note from Tim Nollen, senior media technology analyst at Macquarie. Streaming advertising has increased by 22% for media companies and now accounts for 18% of all advertising.

Technology companies incl Snap, Year, Google AND Microsoft each saw a rebound in digital ad revenue in the last quarter. AND Netflix, Amazon AND AlphabetYouTube has growth stories to tell advertisers.

“Netflix is ​​in many ways the gold standard when it comes to streaming,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said on the company’s earnings call this month.

Netflix ended last quarter with about 270 million subscribers worldwide, which last year sparked a wave of free password-sharing users who became paying customers.

The company has relied on a cheaper, ad-supported tier – $6.99 per month in the US – to induce price-conscious subscribers to pay monthly subscription fees. As of January, just over a year after launch, Netflix’s ad-supported tier had over 23 million lively users per month.

Amazon Prime Video debuted advertising level earlier this year. In recent years, Amazon has spent billions on live sports rights – coveted advertising real estate – including paying about $1 billion a year to broadcast “Thursday Night Football,” one of the National Football League’s year-round game packages. Last month, Amazon reported that its ad revenue rose 24% to $11.8 billion in the first quarter.

YouTube’s first-quarter ad revenue also rose more than 20% to $8.1 billion, topping analyst estimates. In February, YouTube became the most watched streaming app for 12 months in a row, according to Nielsen.

Amazon will hold an Upfront presentation in Modern York on Tuesday, followed by Netflix and YouTube a day later.

With some classic media players, the atmosphere may not be as positive.

National advertising for ComcastNBCUniversal held steady at around $2 billion in the first quarter, but advertising revenue rose for its Peacock streaming service. NBCUniversal will kick off the week with its first performances on Monday at Radio City Music Hall.

Disney reported a decline in advertising revenue on its classic cable networks and Hulu in the first quarter, although ESPN’s domestic ad sales increased more than 20% in the quarter compared to a year earlier. Disney will make its presentation on Tuesday.

“Obviously, the challenge in the advertising market right now is that there is a lot more supply in the market, largely as a result of one of our competitors getting into the advertising space,” Disney Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston said on an earnings call this month. “But that said, I think overall we feel like we’re in a better place than we were a year ago.”

Warner Bros. Discovery, which will be unveiled Wednesday at Madison Square Garden, said classic TV advertising revenue fell 11% in the most recent quarter from a year earlier to about $2 billion. Streaming advertising revenues are up 70%, but the overall number is much lower – just $175 million.

Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney announced last week that they would jointly offer their streaming services – Max, Disney+ and Hulu – to form the first bundle of major streaming services. The two companies are also working on a joint sports streaming venture with Fox. Time will tell what other companies will join the bundling fray.

The mainstay of the television package is sport, which still attracts the largest viewership. And in the background of the discussions during Upfronts week, the future of NBA rights is discussed.

Although Warner Bros. Discovery owns them until the end of the 2024-25 season, and the next owner is currently being identified. NBCUniversal emerged as the leading candidate, while Warner Bros. Discovery is wondering whether it will match NBC’s offering.

The future of regional sports networks also remains an open question, with broadcasters slowly taking over the rights to local games.

EMarketer senior analyst Ross Benes noted that for Warner Bros. Discovery added value to its sports joint venture with Disney and Fox, it must retain the rights to the NBA.

“Without the NBA rights, WBD will become the feeble third part of the sports three-wheeler JV… If the NBA loses, many WBD customers will wonder what all this cost-cutting is for,” he said.

Fox company, which hosts the Upfront on Monday, said first-quarter ad revenue was down from the previous quarter, when it aired the Super Bowl on its broadcast network. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on last week’s earnings call that advertising trends were “clearly moving in the right direction” in early Upfront discussions, thanks in immense part to Fox’s sports lineup.

Like last year, The most essential global one I skipped doing an Upfront presentation this year. Instead, the media company held nine events starting in April in Los Angeles, Chicago and Modern York.

Although no major presentation took place at Carnegie Hall, the events still included previews of upcoming content and awarded A-list stars such as Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore, Stephen Colbert, Tony Romo and others.

Paramount is struggling with an ongoing sales process and is currently without a single CEO.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.