Amazon Says Ad Commitments Grew in 2026 Upfront

Amid what has been described as a tepid “upfront” market, Amazon says its Prime Video service was able to notch gains in volume as more advertisers gravitated to sports and streaming.

The digital giant “has closed our Upfront negotiations with all major holding companies for the 2026–27 season,” says Alan Moss, vice president of ad sales for Amazon Ads, in a statement released Wednesday morning. The executive says Amazon was able to sustain “year-over-year growth from new and existing advertisers,” but did not quantify whether any increases in volume were robust or less so. The executive also says Amazon left the upfront “exceeding our volume goal,” but did not describe what that was.

During the media industry’s annual “upfront” market, U.S. media companies try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory ahead of the release of their next cycle of programs. Media buying executives describe this year’s market as tepid, and with spending potentially flat in several areas.

Two programming formats that got a lot of attention, however, were streaming and sports. Amazon has a lot of both.

Moss said “advertiser demand was fueled” in part by sports programs such as “Thursday Night Football,” “NBA on Prime,” and NASCAR as well as originals including “The Greatest” and young-adult titles such as “Off Campus” and “Overcompensating.”

Amazon offered no comment on the pricing it was able to achieve. During the 2026 market, media buyers put new pressure on streaming inventory, with one buying executive noting that “there’s so much capacity” in streaming, and “there’s no scarcity. Clients are saying, ‘Why do I need to make an upfront commitment” in digital when they want the flexibility to make advertising decisions throughout the year.

Ad buyers again pressed for significant “rollbacks” on rates, particularly for streaming inventory that is supposed to represent the future of the medium. The supply of streaming ad time is huge, particularly with Amazon and Netflix in the market, and much of it is not seen as high value to advertisers because consumers watch movies and shows on demand whenever they wish. That means the audiences at any given time are usually quite diffuse.

There has also been pressure for rollbacks on cable inventory, because more consumers are abandoning their cable subscriptions in favor of streaming services. Many media companies have resisted, and that created a standoff in some upfront discussions, according to five executives familiar with current negotiations.

The sums committed during the “upfront” are quite substantial, but money earmarked for traditional TV has declined for the past three upfront sessions. Ad commitments tied to broadcast primetime fell 2.5% to about $9.1 billion in 2025, according to Media Dynamics, compared with $9.34 billion in the year-earlier period. Dollars committed to cable fell 4.3% to nearly $8.68 billion, compared with nearly $9.1 billion in 2024. Meanwhile, dollars earmarked for streaming rose 17.9%, per Media Dynamics, to $13.2 billion, compared with $11.2 billion in the 2024 upfront.