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Cynthia Littleton
Business Editor
@Variety_Cynthia See All
Getty Images On today’s special Upfronts-themed episode, Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of global advertising, offers a preview of the Mouse House’s May 12 presentation to advertisers in New York. Ferro details Disney’s plan to link the live spectacle of the Grammys, the Super Bowl and the Oscars for big brands. She gives her perspective on the state of the scatter market, the mood of the upfront compared to last year, and how Disney is embracing the creator economy.
Ferro says a good portion of the presentation will focus on Disney’s company-wide investment in live sports and live spectacles that create the “cultural moments” that sponsors crave. The move of the Grammy Awards ceremony to ABC, after more than 50 years on CBS, on Feb. 7, 2027, is a shift that Disney aims to leverage.
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“Come January, we have four of the biggest live events across entertainment and sports. We have the college football championship. And we know college sports is a driver of engagement, of fandom and of true audiences coming together and watching with such passion. Then we go to the first time ever the Grammys will be on ABC and across our our portfolio of streaming platforms. A week later, we’ll have the Super Bowl for the first time in over 20 years on ESPN and ABC. And a couple weeks later, we’re going to have the Oscars,” Ferro says. “Four events that would normally sit across four different companies are all sitting here. So that is a big driver of engagement, excitement and fandom in a way that no one has really brought to market before.”
As for the pulse of the marketplace, Ferro says the vibe is better this spring than last year when the Trump administration unleashed its tariff campaign in the thick of upfront presentations.
“Last year’s upfront was right in the middle when all the tariff announcements were coming out. And I think brands were cautious and hesitant to not fully understand where the market was going and have to move in that marketplace. And yet at the same time, it was a moment and then the market quickly recovered,” Ferro says. “And you saw 2025 year that actually turned out to be pretty strong in terms of where it delivered. October, November, December was a really strong quarter across the marketplace for most most platforms and most brands. That’s continued to be the case.”
The modern Walt Disney Co. offers advertising and sponsorship options at a scale that could not have been imagined even 10 years ago. That gives Ferro an incredible perch for tracking macro-economic trends.
“Having a platform of the size of Disney allows for greater flexibility and agility, and advertisers are able to move from platforms. When I look at the scatter marketplace, it continues to move. Is it the most robust it’s ever been? No, but it definitely continues to move,” Ferro says. “In marketplaces of uncertainty people place their bets — fewer bets — but they place bets in places where they feel confident and they have longstanding relationships where they know that we’re invested in the success of their brands and our platforms. We have felt that really pay off in the last couple of years when there has been uncertainty in the market.”
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