The main takeaway:
In its first NewFronts event on Thursday, Uproxx TV made a play for TV ad dollars with CTV shows that translate to TikTok and the help of what it calls “super creators.”
The company also showcased new ad formats that let brands surround cultural moments.
The biggest announcements:
During its presentation, Uproxx noted that it’s taking a bigger bite of CTV viewership than you might expect, with Comscore data showing the company as a “Top 10 entertainment property on connected TV,” with more than 160 million monthly viewers and more than half its audience watching on TV screens.
“When a network breaks into the Top 10 on CTV at that scale, that’s not a niche story—it’s a creator television story,” Steve Bagdasarian, chief commercial officer at Comscore, said on stage.
The company is looking to leverage that viewership into new shows, including Love, Songs, hosted by Love Island alum Chelley Bissainthe. With the help of Bissainthe and other influencer personalities, Uproxx says it’s built for the super creator era, where large followings drive viewership and engagement on the TV screen.
“Our viewers aren’t just scrolling—they’re channeling the social power of super creators into the living room,” said Jarret Myer, Uproxx co-founder and CEO.
The company is focusing its energy on formats that work on TV as well as through clip-driven social media, with shows like Love, Songs designed to generate multiple clips from each episode across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts.
Advertisers can leverage these moments with new ad formats, including Premiere Moment Ownership, which gives brands 100% share of voice around premiere-day artist releases and cultural drops across Uproxx touchpoints. Meanwhile, Original Programming Integration puts brands in the middle of shows, and Dynamic Cultural Activation, which is powered by proprietary signal detection, allows brands to activate and align investment around cultural signals across CTV and YouTube in real time.
Why it matters:
Today’s TV and streaming landscape is seeing appointment viewing go extinct, with live sports among the few remaining strongholds. So rather than begging an audience to watch its shows, Uproxx’s “super creator” strategy lets its talent bring the eyeballs, while its platform provides the opportunities, including its new moment ownership formats.
Of course, the strategy isn’t new, with outlets such as Tubi being notable believers, leveraging its creator-led movies, including Sidelined, to garner millions of views. But perhaps those competitors are more of a proof of concept for the pitch, with Uproxx banking on adding incremental reach to the big players in the CTV space, while potentially providing advertisers with a stronger share of voice than they might find elsewhere.
