IAB Cuts NewFronts 2018 in NYC to One Week, Plans L.A. Event

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has dramatically scaled back this year’s Digital Content NewFronts advertising pitchfest in New York City — trimming the schedule from two weeks to one.

At the same time, IAB announced plans for a second NewFronts in 2018, to be held in Los Angeles in the fourth quarter.

Past presenting companies not currently participating in 2018 NewFronts in New York include Vice Media, Awesomeness, Turner, Hearst, Bloomberg Media, Defy Media and Popsugar.

The New York City event is scheduled to run April 30-May 4. The 2018 lineup will include the NewFronts’ co-founders — DigitasLBi, Google/YouTube, Hulu, and Verizon’s Oath — along with BBC News, Condé Nast, Disney Digital Network, ESPN, Fusion Media Group, Group Nine Media, Jukin Media, Meredith, the New York Times, Refinery29, Studio71 and Twitter.

Currently, there are 17 presentations planned for the NewFronts in New York, down from 35 in 2017. According to IAB, additional companies are expected to join the NYC lineup in the coming weeks to fill the remaining slots. Each company will produce and manage its own independent, invitation-only presentation.

IAB, the trade group that manages the NewFronts, positioned the 2018 schedule change-up as extending the franchise to the West Coast. “Audiences are turning to a variety of platforms — from OTT to mobile — to engage with digital video content whenever and wherever, and marketers want to be part of this movement,” Anna Bager, IAB’s EVP of industry initiatives, said in a statement.

Last year, several companies bowed out of the NewFronts, including BuzzFeed, Fullscreen Media, and Yahoo. New presenters in 2017 included Twitter, BBC.com and MediaLink.

The NewFronts, founded in 2012, have been the digital-video industry’s answer to the TV upfronts. But whereas the television upfronts are geared toward buying and selling — where the networks secure advertiser deals for their fall TV programming lineups — the NewFronts have been more of a general strategy and content presentation for Madison Avenue types.

Here’s the preliminary 2018 NewFronts schedule for New York:

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