VFC 2027 Upfronts Recaps | SBS, DAZN Media+ (Foxtel Media), Disney Advertising, YouTube & Amazon Ads
The first month of Australia's Upfronts season has seen Video Futures Collective members SBS, DAZN Media+ (Foxtel Media), Disney Advertising, YouTube and Amazon Ads reveal huge announcements, innovations and partnerships that will further enable advertisers to reach their audiences effectively and impactfully.
Read below for the key announcements so far. We will continue our updates following Upfronts presentations from Vevo, Samsung Ads and Netflix over the coming months.
SBS
Key Announcements
SBS has secured exclusive rights to FIFA World Cup 2030™. Australians will once again be able to watch every match of the FIFA World Cup™ live and free after SBS secured the exclusive Australian television, video and radio rights to the FIFA World Cup 2030™. The deal ensures SBS, SBS2, SBS On Demand and SBS Audio will remain the Australian home of the FIFA World Cup™, which will celebrate the competition’s 100th anniversary when it is hosted in Morocco, Portugal and Spain.
A suite of new partnerships were announced which will allow eligible clients to receive outcomes-based measurement as part of their SBS media commitment. The new offering, which forms part of SBS’s Data Lab, brings together SBS’s rich first-party audience data with a range of partners including CommBank iQ and HYP, in order to offer brands on the network a more complete picture of consumer behaviour than traditional media measurement alone allows.
A new landmark multi-year study focused on ‘The Booster Economy’, launched at the Upfronts, will shed new light on intergenerational spending in Australia, specifically the growing trend of ‘everyday inheritances’ - the financial support a growing number of Australian Baby Boomers and Generation Xers are providing their grandchildren and adult children beyond help with mortgages.
“This intergenerational spending multiplier, driven by older Australians, who are the economy’s super-spenders, is why we believe the traditional 25-54s buying demographic is outdated and in many respects is ignoring a significant proportion of the economy.” said Lee Fifoot, SBS Acting Director of Media Sales.
SBS has confirmed its market leading SBS Census Explorer will give marketers and the general public new and fresh insights into the composition, ancestry and diversity of communities that make up our country, following the upcoming release of 2026 Census data next year.
A partnership with oOh!media will see SBS News content featured on more than 6300 screens at oOh!media sites including offices, universities and airports, extending the reach of the national broadcaster’s brand and trusted news service to millions of Australians.
An additional strategic partnership with oOh!media will empower advertisers to extend SBS campaigns into out of home; and will also see SBS and oOh!media go to market with specialised packages enabling brands sponsoring SBS's 2027 Tour de France coverage extend their campaigns into out of home environments.
In 2027, a new partnership with creator marketing platform Fabulate will provide advertisers with access to diverse creators capable of extending SBS campaigns into social and creator-led environments.
Leveraging SBS CulturalConnect's deep cultural expertise, audience insights and in-language creative capabilities, a partnership with multicultural outdoor retail network MCO will help advertisers extend campaigns directly into trusted retail environments serving Australia's diverse communities.
Next year will be the third year that SBS has run the Sustainability Challenge, with the aim of encouraging brands to normalise sustainable behaviour and highlight better environmental practices for Australian consumers. SBS Media and Guardian Australia will join forces in 2027 to offer an expanded pool of $700,000 advertising inventory for the winning campaign, as determined by a jury of leading industry professionals.
2027 Content Slate
Provocative new documentaries Ray Martin is Misinformed, Homeless 300, Bondi and 2.6 Seconds: Death in the Outback tackle some of the biggest issues and events shaping Australia
Major new acquisition Legacy of Spies headlines a premium international drama line-up
SBS confirms FIFA World Cup 2030™ broadcast rights, following a successful 2026 season
SBS’s most successful commission, Alone Australia, returns for season five, taking on an Arctic winter.
NITV celebrates 20 years of Blak excellence with Search for the Snowy with Tony Armstrong and Stephen Curry, Saltwater Cowboys, In Design, Proper Loved Up and more.
Celeste Barber, Brendan Cowell, Shane Janek and Adam Liaw join the cast of Who Do You Think You Are?
The Eurovision Song Contest heads to Bulgaria, The Cook Up reaches 1,000 episodes, and SBS delivers more than 850 hours of premium international cycling
Other drama, comedy and documentary titles announced and returning include:
Meeting a Murderer: The Hilton Bomber, The Jury: Skeleton in the Garden, The Secret DNA of Us, Wolfram (NITV), Little J & Big Cuz (NITV), Blue Lights, Rogue Heroes, The Audacity, The Lowdown, Tall Tales & Murder, Code of Silence, Babylon Berlin, The Vampire Lestat, Apollo Has Fallen, Mangrove Mansion (Digital Originals program), Pretty Deadly (Digital Originals program), Tantrum (Digital Originals program), and Mastermind.
Movies: Anora, Sing Sing, The Count of Monte Cristo, Maria, Queer and Sweet Milk Lake.
Food programming includes Minoli’s Spice Island, Family Dineasties with Kylie Kwong and Sydney Food Boy, Tucci in Italy, Rick Stein’s Australia and Inside Sydney Fish Market, narrated by Rick Stein.
As the Home of Cycling, SBS brings fans closer to the world’s greatest races, including the men’s and women’s Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a España and the major European Cycling Classics, with more than 850 hours of premium international cycling.
SBS Sports programming will also include Australian Championships (Football), the Dakar Rally, the Sydney Marathon, Tennis: Kooyong Classic, Motorsports, ISU Figure Skating, and World Gymnastics.
DAZN Media+ (Foxtel Media)
Key Announcements
DAZN Media+, the innovative advertising arm formerly known as Foxtel Media, unveiled its new brand at the company’s 2027 Upfronts on September 3. The rebrand follows DAZN’s acquisition of the Foxtel Group in 2025. Operating in more than 200 markets, DAZN is the world’s leading sports streaming platform reaching 300 million viewers globally and delivering more than 90,000 live events each year.
Building on Foxtel Media’s established Australian presence, DAZN Media+ represents the advertising interests of Kayo SPORTS, BINGE, Foxtel and Foxtel Go. Backed by DAZN’s global scale, market-leading technology and investment in sports-entertainment innovation, it gives brands more effective ways to connect with premium audiences in the moments that matter.
Sports Audience Graph, a multi-sports fan database based on real behaviour from six million first-party data sports fans, built since Kayo SPORTS’ 2018 launch, will transform fan intelligence into measurable commercial outcomes. The solution matches club members and Kayo SPORTS viewers against verified transaction data, and integrates demographic information, brand affinity and sports viewing behaviour. Purpose built to support planning, activation and measurement, it offers the richest insights available to date on Australian sports fans.
A new creator-powered ecosytem, Club Kayo, will connect brands with fans year-round across AFL, NRL, Cricket and Motorsport. Kicking off with four dedicated creator teams, Club Kayo Cricket, Club Kayo AFL, Club Kayo NRL and Club Kayo Motorsport, the initiative creates new ways for brands to engage fans beyond the live event, with creator-led formats across major codes tailored to different brand objectives and investment levels.
A new partnership with premier sporting screen technology company SureVision will bring brands into the nucleus of live sport with in-stadium, on-the-ground advertising. SureVision represents some of the most premium on-ground advertising inventory in Australian sport, from the iconic Gabba stadium to 4 Pines Park, the home of the Manly Sea Eagles. Effective immediately, DAZN Media+ is the principal partner for SureVision’s in-stadium assets in 2027, including perimeter ribbon signage, scoreboards and wayfinding.
DAZN Media+ announced it is entering the next evolution of media trading, introducing an AI-powered Sales Agent designed to make it faster and easier for advertisers and agencies to discover, evaluate and transact premium video inventory. The agentic solution will enable advertisers, agencies and technology partners with buyer agents to connect directly with DAZN Media+ inventory through global and local industry standards. The agentic solution will be built agnostically, providing partners direct access to its catalogue, pricing and data.
Nev Hasan, Chief Sales Officer, DAZN Media+ said: “This is not about replacing the relationships and expertise that sit behind great media buying. It is about harnessing AI to give buyers and our sales teams better, faster access to the information they need, streamlining buying workflows and creating a more seamless way to transact. In doing so, it frees up more time for the work no tool can replicate - building relationships, developing strategy and solving client business challenges together."
Advertisers will gain a single view of campaign reach and frequency, including incremental reach, across DAZN Media+’s premium video ecosystem from 2027, thanks to a new partnership with AudienceProject. Following the recent announcement of a collaboration between the Video Futures Collective and AudienceProject to bring independent cross-media measurement to Australia, DAZN Media+ has entered its own commercial agreement with AudienceProject to deliver consistent, independently measured reporting for its advertising partners.
Combining census-level campaign delivery data from across DAZN Media+’s platforms with AudienceProject’s independent audience panel, the initiative enables advertisers to understand campaign demographics, co-viewing, reach and frequency, and overlap across platforms using a single and consistent measurement methodology. The solution will also enable advertisers to measure the incremental reach delivered by individual platforms, including the additional audiences reached through Kayo SPORTS and BINGE beyond linear TV.
2027 Content Slate
Kayo SPORTS
Every AFL and NRL home-and-away game, live with no ad-breaks during play and 4K coverage for select matches
Kayo's Summer of the Century will deliver Australia's biggest cricket summer yet, with exclusive live coverage of South Africa, England and India, alongside the New Zealand Test series, BBL, WBBL and the 150th Anniversary Test at the MCG
Every Formula 1® and Supercars practice, qualifying session and race
MotoGP™ partnership renewed into the next decade
The Louis Vuitton 38th Amercia’s Cup in sailing and in golf, an extension of the long-standing partnership with the PGA tour as well as all the men’s majors, the Australian Open, the BMW Australian PGA Championship and the DP World Tour, as well as the Women’s Australian Open and Australian WPGA Championship
BINGE
Highly-anticipated new & returning Australian originals including Tough Love, a new comedy created by and starring Rick Donald alongside acclaimed Australian actress Miranda Otto, which follows a mother determined to prepare her three very unprepared adult children for life without her; The Real Housewives of Melbourne and Selling Houses Australia in its 19th season.
Unmissable new international series and returning global hits including the highly-anticipated series The Ministry of Time based on Kaliane Bradley’s bestselling novel; the global phenomenon that became BINGE’s #1 new series launch of 2024, The Day of the Jackal; season 2 of The Five Star Weekend starring Jennifer Garner; darkly comic thriller Sweetpea; Ted: The Animated Series; The Rachel Incident, a sharp and hilarious coming-of-age drama about friendship, love and secrets, set against the backdrop of Ireland in 2010; Meantime starring James McAvoy as a full-time addict accused of his best friend's murder; psychological thriller Maya; Up to No Good starring eight-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close as a cantankerous killer; period drama The Cadburys and crime drama Superfakes, starring Lucy Liu as a small-time luxury counterfeit dealer who enters a dangerous black-market underworld in order to fund a life of suburban respectability for her family.
Beyond 2027, BINGE has supercharged its long-standing partnership with leading global entertainment studio NBCUniversal with a landmark long-term extension commencing in 2028. The expanded partnership will give BINGE and Foxtel subscribers exclusive access to first-run scripted programming from Sky and Universal Studio Group (USG)-produced drama and comedy series for Peacock, in addition to the very latest films from Universal Filmed Entertainment Group following their theatrical and transactional digital releases.
Disney Advertising
Key Announcements
The Walt Disney Company Australia and New Zealand held its Upfront 2026 in Melbourne, showcasing to hundreds of leading media buyers how Disney+ with Ads combines world-class films, TV series and ESPN sports programming with Disney Advertising’s audience insight and ad innovation for brands.
Disney+ was celebrated as the digital centrepiece of Disney’s fan relationship, bringing Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, Hulu and ESPN together in one place. For media buyers, Disney brings together the stories, sport and fandom that command attention, while Disney Advertising provides the targeting, measurement, creative and partnership tools to activate around them.
Disney Advertising US executives Josh Mattison and Dana McGraw outlined the evolution of Disney’s global advertising technology capabilities and local roadmap. Disney+ with Ads now operates in more than two dozen countries, serves more than 10,000 advertisers globally and runs on a single, unified global ad tech stack.
The Upfront presentation introduced the next wave of Disney Advertising innovation coming to Disney+ in Australia and New Zealand, with richer data insights, stronger creative tools and more engaging ways for advertisers to connect with audiences.
Disney Audience Graph brings together signals across Disney’s platforms to build a deeper understanding of audiences, while Disney Select turns those insights into curated segments that help brands move beyond broad demographics.
Disney Advertising is also making ad experiences more creative and interactive. Ad Selector lets viewers choose the creative they see before content begins, while Video+ ads allow offers to be sent directly to a viewer’s phone without interrupting the viewing experience. Looking further ahead, Disney Ad Creative Studio will help advertisers produce tailored creative assets faster and at scale.
Generation Stream: The Main Event Effect research showed audiences gather around must-watch streaming moments, live events, premieres and finales. For advertisers, they can show up when audiences are deep in their fandom – paying attention, talking and sharing.
2027 Content Slate
New and returning original content includes Count My Lies, The Spot, Paradise Season 3, Only Murders in London, Marvel Television’s VisionQuest, Lucasfilm’s Ahsoka Season 2, FX’s Alien: Earth Season 2, The Land, and Australian Hulu Original The Artful Dodger Season 3.
ESPN adds appointment viewing through US sport including the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, alongside local fan-favourites NBL, WNBL, WNBA and FIBA World Cup coverage.
Major moments including the most comprehensive NFL offering in market, including a minimum of six live games per week, plus The Walt Disney Company and ESPN’s global 2027 Super Bowl broadcast and the historic NFL Melbourne Game.
ESPN also enjoys long-term market leading NBA rights, broadcasting over eight NBA games each week, along with the NBA All Star Weekend, NBA Playoffs and NBA Finals.
YouTube
Key Announcements
YouTube Festival 2026 at Sydney's Carriageworks brought together brands, agencies and more than 100 YouTube creators, including Kevin Lerdwichagul, co-founder and CEO of Glitch, Lyanna Kea and Daniel Gorringe of Dan Does Footy.
According to Ipsos iris data, more than 13.7 million adult Australians, or 64% of the Australian online adult population, watch YouTube on TV screens monthly, with a total reach across all screens of 20.4 million Australians aged 18 and over, or 96% of the population.
Key findings from a study done by marketing effectiveness consultant Rob Brittain included:
Campaigns that include YouTube delivered 33 per cent stronger overall business effects than those that don’t; and
Campaigns that included YouTube showed strong brand equity-building effects compounding over time, showing YouTube is effective across the marketing funnel
New ad products announced at the event include:
New Masthead with Custom Content Shelf, which pairs hero masthead ads with a curated shelf of complementary videos on TV screens to bridge high-impact awareness with deeper storytelling and engagement.
Shorts Ads Actions for Video View Campaigns, which enables direct optimisation and reporting for social actions like clicks, likes, comments, and shares.
Dynamic Regional Pricing in Video, which gives retailers the opportunity to show location-specific pricing and stock in video feeds based on local availability.
Instant Checkout Links, which let viewers tap products in video ads to purchase them immediately with minimal friction, and Buy with Google Pay, which allows viewers to complete purchases directly on their TV screen in just two clicks.
Creator Partnerships with Google Ads and DV360 will allow agencies and advertisers to find, create and boost creator content in both platforms.
Coming later this year is YouTube Insights, which unifies audience insights, cultural trend discovery, creator intelligence and a holistic view of brands’ paid and organic presence in a single surface.
2027 Content Slate
Content streaming from 2027 will include the exclusive Road to the World Cup series with Erling Haaland and free global broadcasting of the Oscars from 2029.
Amazon Ads
Key Announcements
Amazon's 2026 Australia Upfront brought together premium entertainment, expanded partnerships, and new advertising solutions in a showcase that underscored the company's accelerating momentum in the Australian streaming and advertising landscape.
The opportunity for brands on Prime Video is accelerating. Ad-supported viewing hours grew 10% from 2024 to 2025, to more than 5.5 million viewers, reinforcing Prime Video as a destination where engaged audiences and commerce converge.
For brands that need national reach with a local touch, Location-Based Interactive Video Ads let advertisers tailor streaming TV creative by geography—customizing regional offers, pricing, or store information within a single campaign. Built-in interactive features like “Send to Phone” and “Sign Up Today” make each ad directly actionable from the TV screen, bridging national scale and local relevance for categories including automotive, financial services, and telecommunications.
Personalization goes deeper with Dynamic TV Creative, which uses Amazon's trillions of shopping, browsing, and streaming signals to automatically adjust ad elements—from product imagery to headline copy—based on how each viewer shops. Advertisers upload one creative asset and let AI do the rest, removing the need to produce multiple campaign versions. Dynamic TV Creative will be available to Australian brands selling on the Amazon store in early 2027.
And for brands looking to sustain attention across an entire viewing session, Next Up Ads place a brand message the moment a viewer finishes one episode and queues the next—turning binge-watching into sequential storytelling. Brands with Prime Video sponsorships will receive first access to this experience, available in beta later this year.
Amazon Ads is also extending Amazon Audiences to Netflix, building on the existing programmatic partnership between the two companies. Powered by trillions of proprietary Amazon shopping, streaming, and browsing signals, Amazon Audiences enables advertisers to reach Netflix's highly engaged viewers based on real interests and shopping behaviors—connecting commerce intelligence with premium entertainment.
The event also showcased Ads Agent, which combines agentic AI with Amazon's first-party insights to help Australian DSP self-service advertisers build, optimize, and analyze campaigns using natural language. Amazon Ads also announced the Amazon Ads MCP Server, now available to Australian advertisers in open beta. Built on an open standard, the MCP Server gives technology partners, agencies, and advertisers the flexibility to connect AI tools directly into their advertising solutions for campaign creation, reporting, and account management.
2027 Content Slate
Major new titles announced include Fourth Wing, based on Rebecca Yarros' bestselling fantasy franchise, and Tomb Raider, starring Sophie Turner as Lara Croft alongside Sigourney Weaver, from creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Upcoming local titles include season four of The Test, which follows the Australian men's cricket team through the 2027 Ashes, and powerful Australian documentary series including Free Spirits: The Backpacker Poisonings (working title) and Madness of Three.
An international production with Australian connections announced was Subversion—a high-stakes submarine thriller starring Chris Hemsworth and Teresa Palmer, filmed in Australia with local crews.
On the sports front, Prime Video is the exclusive home to all four ICC Cricket Events in 2027, including the first-ever ICC Women's Champions Trophy, ICC World Test Championship Final, and the ICC Men's World Cup. On the court, Prime Video delivers NBA coverage from October through June—including regular season games to exclusive NBA Cup finals and play-ins featuring a number of Australian players, from Josh Giddey and Dyson Daniels to Johnny Furphy, Ben Simmons, and Jock Landale.
Keep an eye on this blog page for further updates as VFC members Vevo, Samsung Ads and Netflix hold their Upfronts events in the coming months.
