Upfront déjà vu: Disney and NBC pitch the similar shaggy dog story – two times

But amid the firepower of its slate and gross sales pitch, one thing else was transparent, too. In 2025, even Upfronts have a structure. And, oddly sufficient, they now appear to return with the similar punchlines.

24 hours previous, NBCUniversal’s Seth Meyers had closed its show off with a comedy roast that playfully needled the corporate’s branding selections, recalled previous HR scandals and pitched the speculation of promoting naming rights to his kids (“Verizon would be a great name for my seven-year-old”). It used to be humorous, biting and oddly on-brand for a media corporate seeking to venture self-awareness.

Then got here Disney. Same structure. Same concept. A pre-recorded video confirmed Jimmy Kimmel, dialing in from a maternity ward in LA, providing to promote naming rights to his first grandchild. “Imagine a baby named Jersey Mike,” he mentioned. “Or Kia Sorento Kimmel.”

When Kimmel seemed reside moments later, he said the overlap.

“Before we start, it’s come to my attention that yesterday, Seth Meyers also did some jokes about selling naming rights to his kids,” he mentioned. “I thought about killing it. But then I thought about Dr Dre [who was also in the video] killing me for making him drive to Hollywood to put on makeup for no reason.”

It used to be a humorous second. But additionally telling. The hosts had been authentic. The jokes had been sharp. The codecs? Virtually an identical. In an business obsessive about area of expertise, the large finales on the two largest Upfronts performed like parallel episodes of the similar display.

You’d assume Disney, of all firms, may zag. As Kimmel put it himself: “I thought they were ‘Imagineers.’”

Still, Disney’s Upfront used to be greater than only a punchline parade. It used to be a significant play for advert bucks. Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of promoting gross sales, laid out a cultured pitch combining content material, scale and tech. There used to be the Disney Compass platform for smarter concentrated on. Dynamic advert codecs. Streaming ingenious optimisation in actual time. And ESPN’s shift to a complete direct-to-consumer type, now bundled within a newly streamlined app.

All of it used to be aimed toward appearing that Disney can sew its sprawling IP right into a coherent, measurable ecosystem. Whether you’re after Marvel superfans, NBA audience or enthusiasts of Zootopia, Disney needs to promote you get entry to to audiences “at scale, with outcomes.”

But coherence stays a piece in growth.

The display rattled via such a lot of genres and tones that it every so often felt like being flung between planets on a somewhat out-of-sync theme park trip. One second, Jeremy Allen White used to be hyping The Bear. The subsequent, Hayden Christensen used to be invoking Jedi lore. And then we had been gazing a musical about Dancing with the Stars. The vary used to be spectacular, however the technique felt extra like a chain of solo acts than an built-in tale.

Which is the place Kimmel, once more, lower via.

“ESPN+ is here to stay,” he mentioned. “Will I get more content on ESPN+ than on ESPN? No. You’ll get less. The plus is now, in many ways… a minus.”

And in a nod to Disney’s more and more convoluted naming practices, he added: “We don’t give things bad and confusing names. Just like FX on Hulu on Disney+.”

While Meyers delivered a sharper, extra surgical New York takedown of NBC’s tradition (“Remember to ask your doctor if Versant is right for you”), Kimmel’s roast had a looser, sun-soaked LA power. But the subjects had been strikingly an identical: too many platforms, too many rebrands and too many executives seeking to repackage the similar IP beneath other names

Still, Disney made its case. Big content material. Bigger ambition. And a brand new theme park in Abu Dhabi to end up it. But there used to be a way the industry is in the similar state of flux because the marketplace as an entire

Again, Kimmel summed it up in his outro. “I know a lot of you are worried that AI might take your jobs,” he informed the large target audience of entrepreneurs and business varieties. “But I don’t think it will. I don’t believe a computer – even the most powerful computer in the world – will ever be able to do what you do. Because no computer wants to do what you do. Your jobs suck.

“Let’s not be stupid. Let’s keep this gravy train rolling for as long as we can. You give us someone else’s money, we put on the commercials, everyone gets paid – and then you get drunk with Darth Vader at the party.”

In different phrases, grasp on for the trip.