Raphael Stevens

GM has hired Sterling Anderson, a former Tesla executive and co-founder of autonomous vehicle company Aurora Innovation, as its chief product officer.
In the newly created position, Anderson will oversee the “end-to-end product lifecycle for both gas- and electric-powered vehicles.”
Anderson, who worked at Tesla for two years before forming Aurora in 2017, will start with the Detroit automaker on June 2.

The 2026 Cadillac Vistiq EV.

DETROIT — General Motors has hired Sterling Anderson, a former Tesla executive and co-founder of autonomous vehicle company Aurora Innovation, as its chief product officer.
In the newly created position, Anderson will oversee the “end-to-end product lifecycle for both gas- and electric-powered vehicles, including hardware, software, services, and user experience,” GM said Monday.

Anderson, who worked at Tesla for two years before forming Aurora in 2017, will start with the Detroit automaker on June 2. He will report to GM President Mark Reuss, who has been the automaker’s longtime product head, or resident “car guy.”
Anderson is the latest ex-Tesla executive to join GM, which continues to roll out new technologies and electric vehicles despite slower-than-expected adoption across the industry. GM previously brought on former Tesla executives Kurt Kelty to lead batteries; Jens Peter “JP” Clausen, who recently left the automaker after leading manufacturing for roughly a year; and Jon McNeill as a member of the company’s board.
GM is attempting to balance its rollout of electric vehicles with gas-powered models at the same time it is advancing technologies such as its Super Cruise advanced driver-assistance system to better compete against Tesla — the U.S. EV and software leader — as well as emerging auto startups from China.
“Sterling brings decades of leadership in automotive engineering and transformative software innovation to his new role and is the right leader to help GM continue leading now and into the future,” Reuss said in a release.
GM CEO and Chair Mary Barra added: “Sterling will help accelerate the pace of progress — he shares our passion and vision for beautifully designed, high-performing, and technology-forward vehicles.”

Anderson was most recently chief product officer at Aurora, which he co-founded with CEO Chris Urmson and others. Aurora disclosed he would be leaving the company, effective June 1, in a regulatory filing last week. His departure follows the company recently launching a commercial self-driving truck service in Texas.
At Tesla, Anderson led teams for the Model X SUV and Tesla’s controversial “Autopilot” advanced driver-assistance system.

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Michael Jordan will join NBC’s NBA broadcasts as a special contributor.
NBC is trying to tap into the nostalgia of Jordan-era basketball.
The NBA returns to NBC this fall.

Michael Jordan, NBA Hall of Famer and co-owner of 23XI Racing, walks the grid prior to the NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida, on Oct. 27, 2024.
James Gilbert | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

NBC is adding Michael Jordan to its National Basketball Association coverage.
The network announced on Monday at its Upfront presentation that Jordan will join the network as a special contributor to NBA broadcasts.

“I am so excited to see the NBA back on NBC,” Jordan said in a video alongside the announcement. “The NBA on NBC was a meaningful part of my career, and I’m excited about being a special contributor to the project. I’m looking forward to seeing you all when the NBA on NBC launches this October.”
It is unclear what Jordan’s exact role will be. A person familiar with the matter told CNBC the basketball legend will not be a “regular” in the lineup but will appear throughout the season.
In July, NBC inked an 11-year deal with the NBA to broadcast games across NBC Sports and Peacock starting this fall.
Jordan’s agreement with NBC marks his first partnership with a major broadcaster since his retirement from the court in 2003.
The 14-time NBA All-Star has since focused on his business career, first as owner of the Charlotte Hornets and later as a NASCAR owner of 23XI Racing.

NBC Sports President Rick Cordella told CNBC Sport last month that NBC was looking to bring back a blend of that ’90s nostalgia to NBA viewers.
The network has also once again tapped into the music of John Tesh, composer of “Roundball Rock,” a popular anthem that gained notoriety with NBC basketball in the ’90s.
Cordella also said NBC will bring back player introductions to the broadcast in an effort to show off the atmosphere.
Jamal Crawford, Reggie Miller, Carmelo Anthony, Mike Tirico and Noah Eagle will also be part of NBC’s NBA broadcast this fall, as well as the use of an artificial intelligence-generated voice of the late Jim Fagan.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC and CNBC.
— CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed to this report. More

President Donald Trump will revive a controversial policy that aims to slash drug costs by tying the amount the government pays for some medicines to lower prices abroad, White House officials said.
The order is a blow to the pharmaceutical industry, which is already bracing for Trump’s planned tariffs on prescription drugs.
It is Trump’s latest effort to try to rein in U.S. prescription drug prices, which are two to three times higher on average than those in other developed nations.

US President Donald Trump participates in a celebration of military mothers in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 8, 2025.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Monday will revive a controversial policy that aims to slash drug costs by tying the amount the government pays for some medicines to lower prices abroad, White House officials said.
Trump will sign an executive order including several different actions to renew that effort, known as the “most favored nation” policy.

“For too long, foreign nations have been able to free ride off of the American people, and American patients forced to pay for too much for prescription drugs,” one official told reporters on Monday.
“The president is dead serious about lowering drug prices,” they said.
Shares of U.S. drugmakers dropped in premarket trading Monday ahead of the official announcement. Eli Lilly fell more than 5%, while Pfizer, Merck and Johnson & Johnson dropped more than 2%.
But White House officials did not disclose which medications the order will apply to. They said Monday’s announcement will be broader than a similar policy that Trump tried to push during his first term, which only applied to Medicare Part B drugs.
It’s unclear how effective the policy will be at lowering costs for patients. In a social media post on Monday, Trump claimed drug prices will be cut by “59%, PLUS!”

The order directs the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Department of Commerce to crack down on “unreasonable and discriminatory policies” in foreign countries that “suppress” drug prices abroad, the officials said. It also directs the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to encourage “most favored nation prices.”
Within 30 days, the secretary will also have to set clear targets for price reductions across all markets in the U.S., according to the officials. That will open up a round of negotiations between HHS and the pharmaceutical industry, officials said, not providing exact details on the nature of those talks.
If “adequate progress” is not made towards those price targets, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will impose the most favored nation pricing on drugs through rulemaking.
The order also directs the Food and Drug Administration to consider expanding imports from other developed nations beyond Canada. Trump signed a separate executive order in April directing the Food and Drug Administration to improve the process by which states can apply to import lower-cost drugs from Canada, among other actions intended to lower drug prices.
It also directs the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to aggressively enforce “anti-competitive actions” that keep prices high in the U.S.
The Department of Commerce will also consider export restrictions that “fuel and enable that low pricing abroad.” 
It is Trump’s latest effort to try to rein in U.S. prescription drug prices, which are two to three times higher on average than those in other developed nations – and up to 10 times more than in certain countries, according to the Rand Corporation, a public policy think tank.
The order is a blow to the pharmaceutical industry, which is already bracing for Trump’s planned tariffs on prescription drugs. Drugmakers have argued that the “most favored nation” policy would hurt their profits and ultimately, their ability to research and develop new medicines.
But the policy could help patients by lowering prescription medication costs, which is an issue top of mind for many Americans. More than three in four adults in the U.S. say the cost of medications is unaffordable, according to a KFF poll from 2022.
The industry also lobbied against similar Trump plans during his first term. He tried to push the policy through in the final months of that term, but a federal judge halted the effort following a lawsuit from the pharmaceutical industry. The Biden administration then rescinded that policy.
White House officials initially pressed congressional Republicans to include a “most favored nation” provision in the major reconciliation bill they plan to pass in the coming months, but the policy would have specifically targeted Medicaid drug costs, Politico reported earlier this month. Several GOP members opposed that measure.

How Trump’s order could affect patients, companies

The industry’s largest trade group, PhRMA, estimated that Trump’s Medicaid proposal could cost drugmakers as much as $1 trillion over a decade. 
Some health policy experts have said a “most favored nation” drug policy may not be effective at lowering medication costs.
For example, USC experts said the policy “can’t undo the basic economics of the global drug marketplace,” where 70% of pharmaceutical profits worldwide come from the U.S.
“Facing a choice between deep cuts in their U.S. pricing or the loss of weakly profitable overseas markets, we can expect many firms to pull out from overseas markets at their earliest opportunity,” experts said in a report in April. 
That will leave Americans paying the same amount for medications, drugmakers with lower profits and future generations of patients with less innovation, they said.
“In sum, everyone loses,” the experts said.
Other experts have said another legal fight with the pharmaceutical industry could prevent the policy from taking effect.
But even if the drug industry pushes back on Trump’s executive order, his administration still has another tool to push down drug prices: Medicare drug price negotiations.
It’s a key provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that gives Medicare the power to negotiate certain prescription drug prices with manufacturers for the first time in history.
Trump last month proposed a change to that policy that drugmakers have long sought. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle could be receptive to the idea, which proposes changing rules that differentiate between small-molecule drugs and biologic medicines.
Trump last week said he plans to announce tariffs on medicines imported into the U.S. within the next two weeks. Those planned levies aim to boost domestic drug manufacturing. 
Drugmakers, including Eli Lilly and Pfizer, are pushing back on those potential duties. Some companies have questioned whether the tariffs are necessary, given that several of them have already announced new U.S. manufacturing and research and development investments since Trump took office. 
Still, Trump last week doubled down on efforts to reshore drug manufacturing. He signed an executive order that streamlines the path for drugmakers to build new production sites.
Caplan noted that even if the drug industry pushes back on the executive order, the administration still has another tool at its disposal: Medicare drug pricing negotiations. More

Fox will launch its upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service, to be called Fox One, ahead of the NFL season.
The streaming service will include all of Fox’s content across news, sports and entertainment.
The company announced last quarter it would offer its own streaming app after efforts were dropped to launch Venu, a joint venture sports streamer.

Marquee at the main entrance to the FOX News Headquarters at NewsCorp Building in Manhattan. 
Erik Mcgregor | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Fox Corp. will launch its direct-to-consumer streaming service, to be called Fox One, ahead of the National Football League season later this year.
Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch unveiled the name and timing of the company’s upcoming streamer during a quarterly earnings call Monday.

While Murdoch didn’t give specifics on pricing, he said during Monday’s call it would be in line with so-called wholesale pricing, meaning it would be similar to what pay-TV distributors pay to offer its channels. Cable TV subscribers will get access to the service at no additional cost, Murdoch said.
“Pricing will be healthy and not a discounted price,” said Murdoch.
“It would be a failure of us if we attract more connected subscribers…we do not want to lose a traditional cable subscriber to Fox One,” said Murdoch. He added the company is doing everything “humanly possible” to avoid more subscribers fleeing the cable bundle.
Fox will also explore partnerships with other distributors and services to offer Fox One.
The media company, known for the cable TV channel Fox News and its sports offering on broadcast and cable, had been on the sidelines of streaming compared with its peers. While the company has the Fox Nation streaming app and free, ad-supported service, Tubi, it has yet to offer all of its content in a direct-to-consumer offering.

Murdoch alerted investors in February of the company’s plans to offer the streaming service by the end of this year.
The decision came shortly after Fox, alongside Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, abandoned efforts to launch Venu, a joint venture sports streaming app. Fox was the only one out of its partners without a subscription streaming app already in the market.
Warner Bros. Discovery offers its live sports content on streamer Max.
Disney’s ESPN has its ESPN+ app and is developing a new flagship streaming app that will reflect the content on its cable TV network. The company will unveil further details on the app this week. CNBC reported last week that ESPN plans to name the app simply ESPN. More

Walgreens is expanding the number of its retail stores served by its micro-fulfillment centers as it works to turn itself around and prepares to go private.
Those centers use robots to fill thousands of prescriptions for patients who take medications to manage or treat diabetes, high blood pressure or other conditions. 
Relying on those centers frees up time for pharmacy staff, reducing their routine tasks, eliminating inventory waste and allowing them to interact directly with patients and perform more clinical services such as vaccinations and testing.

A robotic arm fills prescriptions at a Walgreens’ micro-fulfillment center.
Courtesy: Walgreens

As struggling drugstore chains work to regain their footing, Walgreens is doubling down on automation. 
The company is expanding the number of retail stores served by its micro-fulfillment centers, which use robots to fill thousands of prescriptions for patients who take medications to manage or treat diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions. 

Walgreens aims to free up time for pharmacy staff, reducing their routine tasks and eliminating inventory waste. Fewer prescription fills would allow employees to interact directly with patients and perform more clinical services such as vaccinations and testing.
Walgreens first rolled out the robot-powered centers in 2021, but paused expansion in 2023 to focus on gathering feedback and improving performance at existing sites. After more than a year of making upgrades, including new internal tools, the company said it is ready to expand the reach of that technology again.
Walgreens told CNBC it hopes to have its 11 micro-fulfillment centers serve more than 5,000 stores by the end of the year, up from 4,800 in February and 4,300 in October 2023. As of February, the centers handled 40% of the prescription volume on average at supported pharmacies, according to Walgreens. 
That translates to around 16 million prescriptions filled each month across the different sites, the company said. 
The renewed automation push comes as Walgreens prepares to go private in a roughly $10 billion deal with Sycamore Partners, expected to close by the end of the year. 

The deal would cap a turbulent chapter for Walgreens as a public company, marked by a rocky transition out of the pandemic, declining pharmacy reimbursement rates, weaker consumer spending and fierce competition from CVS Health, Amazon and other retail giants.
Like CVS, Walgreens has shifted from opening new stores to closing hundreds of underperforming locations to shore up profits. Both companies are racing to stay relevant as online retailers lure away customers and patients increasingly opt for fast home delivery over traditional pharmacy visits.
The changes also follow mounting discontent among pharmacy staff: In 2023, nationwide walkouts spotlighted burnout and chronic understaffing, forcing chains to reexamine their operational models.
Walgreens said the investment in robotic pharmacy fills is already paying off.
To date, micro-fulfillment centers have generated approximately $500 million in savings by cutting excess inventory and boosting efficiency, said Kayla Heffington, Walgreens’ pharmacy operating model vice president. Heffington added that stores using the facilities are administering 40% more vaccines than those that aren’t. 
“Right now, they’re the backbone to really help us offset some of the workload in our stores, to obviously allow more time for our pharmacists and technicians to spend time with patients,” said Rick Gates, Walgreens’ chief pharmacy officer.
“It gives us a lot more flexibility to bring down costs, to increase the care and increase speed to therapy – all those things,” he said. 
Gates added that the centers give Walgreens a competitive advantage because independent pharmacies and some rivals don’t have centralized support for their stores. Still, Walmart, Albertsons and Kroger have similarly tested or are currently using their own micro-fulfillment facilities to dispense grocery items and other prescriptions. 
Micro-fulfillment centers come with their own risks, such as a heavy reliance on sophisticated robotics that can cause disruptions if errors occur. But the facilities are becoming a permanent fixture in retail due to the cost savings they offer and their ability to streamline workflows, reduce the burden on employees and deliver goods to customers faster.

How Walgreens micro-fulfillment works 

Inside a Walgreens micro-fulfillment center, which helps fill thousands of prescriptions.
Courtesy: Walgreens

When a Walgreens retail pharmacy receives a prescription, the system determines whether it should be filled at that location or routed to a nearby micro-fulfillment center. Maintenance medications, or prescription drugs taken regularly to manage chronic health conditions, and refills that don’t require immediate pickup are often sent to micro-fulfillment.
At the core of each facility is a highly automated system that uses robotics, conveyor belts and barcode scanners, among other tools, to fill prescriptions. The operations are supported by a team of pharmacists pharmacy technicians and other professionals.
Instead of staff members filling prescriptions by hand at stores, pill bottles move through an automated and carefully choreographed assembly line. 
Pharmacy technicians fill canisters with medications for robot pods to dispense, and pharmacists verify those canisters to make sure they are accurate. Yellow robotic arms grab a labeled prescription vial and hold it up to a canister, which precisely dispenses the specific medication for that bottle.

Robotic arms fill prescriptions at a Walgreens micro-fulfillment center.
Courtesy: Walgreens

Certain prescriptions are filled at separate manual stations, including inhalers and birth control pill packs. Each prescription is then sorted and packaged for delivery back to retail pharmacy locations for final pickup.
There are other security and safety measures throughout the process, said Ahlam Antar, registered group supervisor of a micro-fulfillment center in Mansfield, Massachusetts. 
For example, the robot pods automatically lock and signal an error with a red-orange light if a worker attaches a canister to the wrong dispenser, preventing the incorrect pills from going in a prescription, she said. 
Properly training workers at the centers to ensure accuracy and patient safety is also crucial, according to Sarah Gonsalves, a senior certified pharmacy technician at the Mansfield site. 
She said a core part of her role is to make sure that technicians can correctly perform the different tasks in the process. 

Improvements to robotic prescription fills

Antar, who has worked at the Mansfield site since its 2022 opening, said Walgreens has made improvements to the micro-fulfillment process after considering feedback from stores and patients during the paused expansion. That includes establishing new roles needed to support the process at the sites, such as a training manager for all 11 locations. 
The facilities also plan to transition to using smaller prescription vials after hearing concerns that the current bottles are too large, according to a Walgreens spokesperson. They said that will allow the centers to ship more prescriptions per order and reduce costs.

A robotic arm fills a prescription vial at a Walgreens micro-fulfillment center.
Courtesy: Walgreens

Heffington said the automated locations have helped reduce Walgreens’ overall prescription fulfillment costs by nearly 13% compared to a year ago. 
She said Walgreens has also increased prescription volume by 126% year-over-year, now filling more than 170 million prescriptions annually. The company hopes to raise that number to 180 million or even more. 
Heffington added that Walgreens implemented new internal tools to track the work across all 11 centers and provide real-time data on where a patient’s prescription is in the micro-fulfillment process. 
“If a patient called the store and said, ‘Hey, can you tell me where my prescription is today?’ [Workers] can do that with great specificity,” thanks to the new tools, Heffington said. 
Despite the company’s progress, Gates said there is more work to be done with micro-fulfillment centers. 
For example, he pointed to the possibility of shipping prescriptions directly to patients’ doorsteps instead of putting that burden on retail stores. 
“It’s only step one right now,” he said. 
Other improvements may still be needed at facilities, according to some reports. For example, WRAL News reported in April that some customers at a Walgreens store in Garner, North Carolina, say they are only getting partial prescription fills, with several pills missing, or their medicine is being delayed.

Retail store pharmacy staff see benefits 

A customer views merchandise for sale at a Walgreens store in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Christopher Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Before Brian Gange’s Arizona store started relying on an automated facility, he walked into the pharmacy every morning knowing that a massive list of prescriptions was in his work queue waiting to be filled for the day. 
Now, with help from micro-fulfillment, that list is significantly smaller each day, according to Gange. 
“We don’t have to spend as much time on just those repetitive fulfillment tasks,” he told CNBC. “It really takes a huge weight off our shoulders.” 
Gange said that gives him and his team time to step behind the pharmacy counter and interact with customers face-to-face, answering questions, providing advice, performing health tests or administering vaccines. 
That kind of attention can make all the difference for a patient.  
For example, Gange recalls stepping away for five minutes to take a patient’s blood pressure despite being overwhelmed with tasks while working at a different Walgreens location several years ago. He ended up sending that person to the emergency room because their blood pressure was “off the charts.” 
That patient’s wife visited the pharmacy the next day to thank Gange, saying her husband “probably wouldn’t be here with us today” without that blood pressure test. 
“I shouldn’t have to question whether I have that five or 10 minutes to check a blood pressure for a patient,” Gange said. “Micro-fulfillment and centralized services are really what are going to allow us to be able to do that, to have that time.” 
“That really allows us to provide better care for them,” he added. More

Media giants’ annual pitch to advertisers kicks off in the Upfronts this week, and discussions are clouded by economic uncertainty.
Media ad chiefs say chief marketing officers across industries are making contingency plans in light of the trade war.
The trade war, inflation and other macroeconomic trends have cast a cloud on the ad market after it was showing signs of stabilization following the disruptions of the Covid pandemic and Hollywood strikes.

Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb, and Carrie Coon in ‘The White Lotus’ on HBO. 
Courtesy: Fabio Lovino | HBO

Media companies are staring down widespread economic uncertainty as their annual pitch to advertisers and marketers kicks off.
This week legacy entertainment giants including Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery will stage presentations to ad buyers about why they should commit money to their upcoming slates of sports, entertainment and news programming. Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video are crowding the field holding their second annual Upfronts. Paramount Global held its presentations with advertisers and agencies last week.

This year the stakes are high as chief marketing officers across brands formulate contingency plans for a variety of outcomes regarding tariffs, inflation, consumer sentiment and other macroeconomic shifts that could affect their spending.
The evolving cost landscape adds to the existing headwinds facing the media industry: Pay-TV subscribers are fleeing for streaming options. And while streaming has begun to reach profitability for some companies, the services have yet to prove as lucrative as the traditional bundle. Meanwhile competition is stiff as digital and social media players capture the lion’s share of ad dollars.
It’ll prove another year of Upfronts clouded by concerns following the Covid pandemic and Hollywood strikes. Last year showed stabilization in an ad market, and executives had earlier told CNBC 2025 was expected to be another year of normalization.
Instead, the industry is bracing itself — and executives are fine-tuning their pitch for the moment.
“Media becomes more complicated in the landscape that’s defined by inflation, regulatory uncertainty, shifting go-to-market timelines, and that serves as this backdrop for the season,” said John Halley, ad sales chief at Paramount. “In moments of uncertainty like this there are very few places that offer the reach, the brand safety and the impact of the Paramount portfolio. That’s an important point to make in a market like this.”

In interviews with the top ad chiefs among the legacy media companies, executives touted sure-fire content and reliable viewership metrics in an effort to demonstrate the importance of advertising during uncertain times. Many executives said they have yet to see a “material” pullback on ad spending, as had been feared.
Chief among the top categories during Upfronts is live sports, they said. Live events, like awards shows, and so-called “must-see TV” will also be a big factor in conversations.
“Sports is having a halo on live [TV] in general,” said Gina Reduto, executive vice president of ad strategy at NBCUniversal.
Although general entertainment has fallen behind sports in ratings, shows like Warner Bros. Discovery’s “The White Lotus,” which generated steady viewership and controlled the cultural conversation on a weekly basis, stand out.
“I think everyone knows that regardless of what happens, they still have to sell, they still have to move [product],” said Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of global advertising. “They say, ‘We still have to deliver products and services to our customers, and we have to do that in the best ways possible.’ That’s understanding the parameters we’re dealing with and what those implications are in terms of pricing.”

Making plans

Big brands that have in some cases sat out for years the TV advertising frenzy around the biggest US sporting event — the Super Bowl — are returning Sunday and spending big amid record ad prices. It’s been a bumpy couple years marked by pandemic-era restraint and political polarization, but the American football championship offers an increasingly unequalled viewership too big to pass up.
Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images

Concerns that President Donald Trump’s trade war could jack up prices have yet to translate into a pullback in advertising spending, media executives told CNBC. Quarterly reports for media companies have yet to reflect any decrease in spend due to tariffs, although the decline of the linear TV bundle has weighed down financials.
WBD has yet to see “any material cuts” to its advertising volume, said Ryan Gould and Bobby Voltaggio, the company’s presidents of U.S. advertising sales.
“The sentiment in the market isn’t really indicative of what we’re seeing currently. But you know, obviously, the future state of impact is yet to be known,” said Voltaggio.
Jeff Collins, Fox’s president of ad sales, echoed his peers: “Every client that we’re talking with obviously has their scenario planning down for different things that could happen. But I think one of the important lessons that they learned during Covid was not to overreact to uncertainty.
“Obviously you need to have a plan, and they all have plans,” Collins said. “But until there’s some sort of tangible impact to their business, we haven’t seen anyone really looking to pullback.”
Disney’s Ferro said her team has spent additional time with advertising partners in recent months, discussing various scenarios in which tariffs could affect different categories and products. She added chief marketing officers she’s spoken with are operating in what she called “war rooms.”
Ferro recounted specific conversations with a mobile phone company (which she declined to identify) that highlight the trade policy volatility: The phone company on a Friday in mid-April decided to pull an order for roughly $1.5 million in advertising for the month in light of tariff exposure. That weekend, the Trump administration exempted smartphones and other devices from the tariff scheme.
“So on Monday, that deal that went away on Friday went to order,” said Ferro.
“It’s literally in real time what’s happening. I think there’s a lot of scenarios they’re going through and it’s very in real time,” Ferro said.
Data firm eMarketer estimated traditional TV advertising spending during Upfronts will decline by between $2.78 billion and $4.12 billion, depending on the severity of the tariff impact. Spending on streaming in these annual discussions will be more stable, however, with eMarketer expecting $1 billion in growth in that category. Media companies sell advertising for both platforms together.
This gives advertisers the upper hand when negotiating pricing, with the exception of sports content. It’s likely the companies that are more affected by the loss of pay-TV subscribers will be willing to lower their pricing, said Jonathan Gudai, CEO of Adomni, a digital advertising platform.
Ad data firm EDO said there has already been a pullback on estimated ad spending in the automotive and various retail and consumer sectors since Trump’s announcement on tariffs.
At the same time, concerns from consumers on soon-to-be higher prices has translated to higher ad effectiveness. For example, home appliances brands cut estimated spending by 30%, but consumers’ responsiveness to ads rose 77%.
Media executives — who largely declined to discuss pricing — all said data from firms like EDO is key in discussions with advertisers, which are increasingly looked for tailored, targeted buys rather than sheer audience size.
“Advertisers are saying, ‘I want to buy very specific audiences.’ That’s why outcomes are so important,” said Kevin Krim, CEO of EDO. “You’ve got to have a very granular view of what you’re willing to pay for.”

The Upfronts are dead! Long live the Upfronts!

Paramount ad sales chief, John Halley speaks during an upfront event.
Getty Images for Paramount

All of these factors play into a recurring question for the advertising market: Do the annual Upfronts still matter?
“I’ve been in the business for about 30 years and the question of do we still need the Upfront [presentations] comes up every single year,” said Fox’s Collins.
The answer this year for the traditional media giants may be: more than ever.
“That’s the last moment that you want to quit advertising because, you know, you got to try harder, not sort of capitulate,” said EDO’s Krim.
Krim added the need for flexibility makes real-time data more important: “You cannot be using last year’s model.”
He also said it may further shift ad dollars to programmatic buying, putting media companies on a more “level playing field” with digital companies like Meta, Amazon and Google. Despite being behemoths in the ad space, these tech companies have started to reveal the beginnings of cracks in their ad businesses.
The annual presentations could also lock in buying for some of the consistent favorite categories.
NBCUniversal’s Reduto told CNBC that locking in ads during the Upfronts gives “an opportunity for advertisers to guarantee they have access to the things they know truly drives sales.”
Earlier this year, Mark Marshall, NBCUniversal’s chairman of global advertising and partnerships said in a letter that mapped out the company’s upcoming slate of big sports events, including the Super Bowl, Olympics and World Cup, as proof of Upfronts’ utility.
“I think from an advertiser perspective they still value the ability to lock in the franchise positions that they want to own, lock them in at desirable pricing, and be afforded flexibility,” said Collins.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC. More