SEP ’26 Upfronts: From Media Channels to Media Ecosystems
If there was one theme that cut through the recent Upfronts, it wasn’t a new channel, format or piece of content. It was ecosystems.
From NINE connecting TV, streaming, digital and OOH, to Amazon bringing together commerce signals, entertainment, third-party media, DSP and AI, the direction of travel is clear: media owners and technology platforms want to own more of the customer journey.
And that changes the role of the agency.
From channels to ecosystems
With NINE you’re getting a proposition that is more and more centred around connecting its assets. NINE is looking to take consumers from discovery and engagement through research and ultimately towards transaction, with data and measurement helping close the gap.
Amazon is approaching the same challenge from a very different starting point.
Its Australian Upfront expanded the Amazon DSP ecosystem into audio through SCA, ARN and Nova, alongside Spotify. Amazon Audiences is also being extended to Netflix. Amazon is effectively taking its shopping, browsing and streaming signals beyond its owned properties and into a broader media ecosystem.
The opportunity isn’t necessarily another channel on the media plan. It’s connecting the top and bottom of the funnel and turning audience insights into audience signals, then into action. Could we call this a circular funnel?
We often talk about chasing faces, not just places. The ability to understand an audience across different environments, rather than treating every channel as a separate transaction, creates the potential for budgets to become much more fluid.
Amazon is changing the shape of the proposition
Amazon is arguably the clearest example of where this is heading.
Its proposition now stretches from premium entertainment and live sport through to commerce, first-party signals, third-party publishers, DSP and measurement. It is also introducing agentic AI through Ads Agent and its MCP Server, allowing campaigns and account activity to be managed through AI tools.
That’s a powerful proposition because the signal isn’t just an inferred media audience. Amazon has a direct relationship with consumers through shopping and browsing behaviour, which can then inform advertising across a much broader media footprint.
But who is making the ad investment decision?
Both NINE and Amazon are leaning heavily into technology and automation to make trading easier.
That’s positive but it creates an important question for agencies: if every media owner has its own AI agent, optimisation engine, audience graph and measurement solution, who sits above all of the agents making the investment decision?
This is where we believe the agency role becomes more important, not less.
The job isn’t simply to use the tools each media owner provides. It’s to determine whether the opportunity is genuinely incremental, how it compares with alternatives in the market, and whether it is delivering the right outcome for the client.
Technology should make better decisions possible. It shouldn’t make it easier to automatically spend more with the company providing the technology.
The attribution race
This is also why the growing focus on attribution is worth watching.
NINE is leaning further into an affiliate-style approach to connect TV, online and OOH with sales outcomes. Amazon is connecting media exposure to commerce outcomes through its own data and measurement ecosystem.
There is obvious value in closing the gap between media and business outcomes.
But there is also a risk that, as media owners try to become increasingly like Amazon or Google, they become less differentiated from one another. The value of premium media isn’t necessarily in becoming another performance platform. It’s understanding what that environment uniquely contributes, and then also being able to prove it.
Stan, sport and premium audiences
For NINE, continued commercialisation of Stan creates an interesting opportunity to access premium and potentially high-value audiences beyond traditional linear television. And, unsurprisingly, there was plenty of sport.
Sport remains a major driver of premium inventory and CPMs, particularly as major events become increasingly scarce and valuable.
