Amazon has tried to shake up the television industry’s tradition of annual “upfront” advertising sales, and Madison Avenue is working to deal with the aftershocks.

Top media buyers signaled to TV networks earlier this summer that an opportunity to deepen ties with Amazon could slow the industry’s annual negotiation process over ad sales, according to eight people familiar with this year’s preliminary talks. Those talks have taken place for decades in the late spring and summer, between the traditional September-to-May TV season. That TV airing schedule has been severely disrupted by the advent of streaming. But the business of buying and selling TV ads is still — for now — driven by preliminary talks. This year, Amazon hasn’t shied away from throwing its weight behind the scenes, with the longtime pillar of the Big Tech sector now also in the business of selling significant TV time.

In short: Amazon is in the midst of a major review of its media buying accounts, with Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands, Omnicom Group’s OMG and WPP’s GroupM vying for the business. One or more of the media agencies may consider holding back money to invest in Amazon’s ad-supported streaming offering, these people say. The review of Amazon’s media buying business, which is currently handled by Interpublic, is expected to be completed sometime this fall.

The remarkable admission highlights Amazon’s growing influence in the advertising industry, where the company has an increasing number of goods to sell, from spots on “Thursday Night Football” and a new cycle of its “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” TV series to a variety of ad tech products that are part of its larger Amazon Web Services.

The timing of the Amazon accounts review likely affected the pace of the upfront market, these people say, when U.S. TV networks try to sell the bulk of their advertising inventory before their next programming cycle. WPP, Interpublic and Omnicom may also have been hampered in their negotiations with Amazon, one purchasing executive suggests. “WPP, Interpublic and Omnicom can’t just come in and say, ‘We’re going to rip you off,'” if Amazon’s pricing or sales efforts are viewed as undesirable, this executive says. “They have to bring extra money to market for Amazon.”

Amazon declined to comment on the review or its activities beforehand. GroupM, Omnicom Media Group and Mediabrands declined to make their executives available for comment.

The situation has led to expectations that millions of advertising dollars could flow back into the market in the fall, with the losers of the review spending money previously reserved for Amazon. Whether they will be able to get the advertising inventory they want from Amazon’s video rivals remains to be seen.

While using account review to force more favorable terms in the marketplace is not the most common tactic, it has been used before, executives said. Media companies are also big advertisers. Their movie studios spend millions on ads and trailers that lure consumers to premiere weekends, and their television networks often break new ground with clever “tune-in” campaigns that place promotional messages about new series on the doors of supermarket refrigerators or even on the wrapping paper of deli counters. There have been cases in the past when a media company has pushed one of the buying agencies it works with to bring more money to the negotiations if it wants to keep a lucrative or prestigious account with a movie or TV network, people familiar with the industry say.

Still, it would be “extraordinary” if such guarantees were encouraged by an account review, says Melissa Lea, an advertising industry veteran and founder of Muster Consultants, which helps advertisers review and audit agency work. Typical media agency account reviews would likely focus on the agency’s plans for placing ads and the rates it might be able to achieve, Lea says, as well as some assessment of how many full-time employees would be needed to sustain the work.

Big advertisers have messed up the groundwork in the past. In 2012, for example, General Motors and its then buying agency Carat – now part of the advertising conglomerate Dentsu – insisted on getting discounts from the TV channels. Back then, when the US economy was in better shape and streaming had not yet taken hold, the big broadcast and cable TV operators fought back and denied the auto giant access to top programs and sports.

The issue with Amazon comes amid a much more complex market. The launch of new ad-supported plans from Amazon and Netflix has created an oversupply of streaming advertising inventory in the market. With the supply of such ad space growing, advertisers have been demanding “drops” in the prices they pay for premium sites like Disney+. Amazon’s review could help the company offset some of the drop it may have had to offer in overall prices.

Amazon has also become a giant on Madison Avenue. The company spent nearly $3.5 billion on advertising in digital, outdoor, print, radio and television in 2023, according to data from MediaRadar, an ad spending tracker. Ad spending appears to be on the rise. MediaRadar found that Amazon spent $3.4 billion on similar advertising in the first six months of 2024.

Such sums made Amazon one of the country’s biggest advertisers last year, along with Procter & Gamble, AbbVie, the Walt Disney Co. and Verizon Communications, according to MediaRadar. Interpublic, Omnicom and WPP would certainly gain media credibility and standing from their roles in Amazon’s deals — ensuring that no advertising company involved in a review can ignore the potential business benefit.

At the same time, media agencies need to approach such a process with caution. After all, the dollars they hold in reserve typically belong to their clients. Agencies have a fiduciary duty to manage those funds carefully and in the best interests of their advertisers’ business plans. Whether keeping those dollars out of the market to curry favor with Amazon would be considered part of such a strategy remains to be seen. “It’s an agency’s job to get the best deal for their clients, but to do so in a transparent and ethical way,” Lea says.