Netflix said Monday it has closed its upfront sales process, hitting its target of nearly doubling its ad commitments.
In reporting quarterly earnings last month, Netflix execs reaffirmed their expectation that ad revenue will hit $3 billion in 2026, twice the 2025 level. The streaming giant is in the fourth year of its exploration of ads, an initiative that reversed more than a decade of resistance to the idea. It now annually presents its wares in an upfront presentation to advertisers in New York, alongside other pitches from YouTube, Amazon, Disney and other big media sellers.
“This upfront proved that advertisers are more excited than ever to work with Netflix, where they can access the most engaged audiences, with an ad tech platform built to drive results, all centered around series and films that never disappoint,” Netflix ad chief Amy Reinhard wrote in a blog post.
Notable draws for buyers, she said, included returning series like Love Is Blind, Big Mistakes, Bridgerton, Emily in Paris, Nobody Wants This, and Running Point, as well as upcoming feature films including Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew.
Netflix has also pushed aggressively into live sports and sports-adjacent fare, acquiring rights to the WWE’s weekly Raw showcase along with NFL and Major League Baseball games. The 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup saw “extremely high” demand, Reinhard said, with game sponsorships sold out and in-game inventory nearly gone.
The company has also rolled out a new set of ad tools to help buyers. They include programmatic enhancements like enabling deals through the CTV Marketplace or at the instigation of demand-side platforms. The latter enables buyers to transact with Netflix via DSPs they already use, including Google, Amazon, Yahoo or The Trade Desk. Pause ads are also available to buy programmatically across all DSPs.
In announcing the upfront news, Reinhard also said the Media Rating Council has granted accreditation to the Netflix Ads Suite.
Netflix said it is planning its first international upfront events for ad buyers in Mexico City, São Paulo, Tokyo, London, and Paris. At last May’s upfront in New York, Reinhard announced that Netflix’s ad tier, which has grown to 250 million monthly unique users, would expand to 15 additional countries.
