High-profile Hollywood writers disrupt TV’s big advertising event

As dozens of marketers headed to Radio City Music Hall Monday morning for a major event hosted by NBCUniversal, they were greeted by dozens of standout writers marching at the building’s entrances.

“NBC, you’re no good, pay your writers like you should!” they sang.

As the writers’ strike enters its third week, protesters have set their sights on disrupting the so-called upfront week, a decades-old tradition in which media companies host lavish events to promote their lineups in an effort to woo advertisers.

“This Is Why ‘Saturday Night Live’ Wasn’t On, Isn’t It?” remarked one marketer to another outside of Radio City.

Even before Monday, when the upfronts officially kicked off, the standout writers had already successfully shaken up the event. Netflix, which introduced commercials last year, was about to go live for the first time on Wednesday at the legendary Paris theater. But as executives began to worry about the demonstrations, the streaming company abruptly canceled the in-person event late last week, opting to make it virtual instead.

Other major media companies, including Fox, Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery, have decided to continue. Still, media executives have anxiously awaited the fallout from the prospect of hundreds of writers gathering on picket lines.

Text messages flew back and forth all weekend: Would more companies cancel their in-person presentations in advance? Would the sight and sounds of marching writers be too much for some marketers, who leave hundreds of empty seats in venues like the Javits Center and the Theater at Madison Square Garden? And how much impact would a chaotic scene have on their bottom line?

Negotiations between major Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America, the union representing writers, failed on May 1, and 11,500 television and film writers immediately went on strike. The writers claim their wages have stagnated and working conditions have deteriorated in the streaming era.

But the writers don’t just demonstrate outside the major studios. They have also managed to postpone or cancel some productions where scripts are in the bus and filming continues. They’ve also gone a long way, setting up pickets outside of productions in Maplewood, NJ, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos canceled a performance at the PEN America Literary Gala over threats from protesters. And there are serious concerns in the theater world that the Tony Awards will be postponed if the writers go ahead with a plan to steal the awards.

Even without the strike, the mood around this year’s upfronts was gloomy. Advertising dollars remain a vital source of revenue for media companies, with billions of dollars usually traded in the weeks and months following the upfronts. But the advertising market was weak due to declining network and cable viewership combined with broader economic concerns. Marketers have already indicated that they don’t want to spend as freely as in previous upfronts.

Arjan Dijk, Booking.com’s chief marketing officer, said “it looks like a buyer’s market this year”. And Kelly Metz, the director of advanced TV at Omnicom Media Group, said ad buyers responded to how their “customers are feeling and doing and things are going, and there are some significant economic headwinds.”

NBCUniversal has been going through a particularly chaotic period in recent weeks. In late April, NBCUniversal’s CEO was fired for inappropriate behavior. And late last week, Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s advertising chief and long-time master of ceremonies, abruptly left the company to become Twitter’s CEO.

Ms. Yaccarino was still rehearsing for this year’s upfront on Thursday, when Elon Musk tweeted that he had hired a new chief executive for Twitter. NBCUniversal announced on Friday that she would be leaving effective immediately, prompting the company to rush to rework the event.

At the NBCUniversal upfront, the effect of the strike was evident from the start. The gatherings are usually star-studded events, but with many actors and celebrities refusing to cross the picket lines, the company turned to the news department for help. “Morning Joe” host Willie Geist made an introduction for a “Saturday Night Live” trailer. And MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle previewed the company’s upcoming lineup of dramas.

When a trailer came out featuring NBC legends like Amy Poehler and “Law & Order” executive producer Dick Wolf, it started with a title card stating that the interviews were taped in April, before the writers’ strike began.

Nevertheless, the company managed to book a number of big guests. Reba McEntire, the country singer who will be a judge on “The Voice” next season, performed, as did Nick Jonas.

And even with significantly reduced presentations, fears that marketers would stay away were unfounded—nearly every seat in Radio City Music Hall was taken.