Upfront buys are commitments for an entire TV season, where advertisers seek to lock in pricing and secure sought-after slots, and are still how the majority of commercial airtime is bought and sold. They’re typically negotiated during and after the annual “Upfronts” in New York City, where networks and OTT content distributors (such as Hulu) present their slate of programming for the upcoming year to advertisers. Scatter buys are made on a month-to-month or quarter-by-quarter basis.
