With the broadcast networks expected to take a hit in the upcoming upfront market, with total sales down in the range of 10 percent or more, it would only follow that the cable networks would suffer as well, as second in line for media buyers' attention and ad dollars.

But media forecasters and buyers think cable will actually do well in the upfront, likely better than broadcast, even with the weak ad market, with total sales coming in flat to down slightly.

“This could be the year that cable overtakes broadcast primetime in dollar volume,” observes Larry Novenstern, executive vice president and managing director of national and local TV investments at Optimedia.

“That says a lot about cable. I don’t think it says anything bad about broadcast. It’s just an inevitability.”

The reason, explain buyers, has much to do with the different strategies of the broadcast and cable networks when they meet with media buyers to hash out deals.

Broadcast networks typically sell 75 percent of their ad inventory for the upcoming year at the upfront market, typically held in late May after the networks have presented to their fall schedules to buyers.

The rest they hold back for the scatter market, where leftover inventory is auctioned off throughout the rest of the year.

But this year, with advertiser demand weak, the networks face the prospect of fetching lower prices in the upfront.

Rather than accept those lower prices, the networks will likely sell what inventory they can at the best prices they can fetch and hold back what's left for sale until later in the year in the scatter market.

They'll do so on the assumption that the economy will improve, pushing up demand, and that they will get more for that ad inventory than they would have in the upfront.

In the case of cable, there's no real incentive to hold back inventory. The networks have so much more inventory that it makes more sense to sell as much as they can in the upfront.

The most likely scenario is that the cable networks will ask for negligible price increases and see total sales come in flat to slightly down from last year.

“I think flat is a best-case scenario,” says Harry Keeshan, executive vice president and director of national broadcast at PHD. “That’s probably in the ballpark.”

The big difference from past years is that perhaps 65 percent of the coming year’s inventory will be sold in the upfront, up from roughly 50 percent most years.

David Joyce, an analyst with Miller Tabak, is projecting the cable upfront will pull in $7.85 billion, up 2.6 percent from last year on CPMs that will be up about 2.5 percent.

“All of cable is taking viewer market share from broadcast with their trend toward original programming,” he says. “And CPMs are still at a significant discount compared to broadcast CPMs.”

Media buyers see the cable upfront shaking out differently, but only slightly.

Most buyers think a couple of cable groups with the widest reach, perhaps Turner, will kick off the cable upfront by offering minimal CPM increases over last year.

The effect will be that advertisers will rush in to snap up that inventory, leading to a frenzy where the cable upfront wraps up in a few weeks, with negotiations beginning in early June.

“If someone starts writing really sweet deals for the volume, it could move really fast,” says Novenstern. “If nobody seizes that opportunity and they’re not bending, it’ll be very drawn out.”

Most buyers note that some key ad categories like automotive and financial are hurting. But most also say there’s a lot of money in the market place, perhaps 5 percent to 10 percent down from last year for all national TV outlets.

Cable will snare a bigger share of that smaller pie.

Another possibility, although one that appears less likely to take place, is that the cable networks stick to CPM increases and force a slowdown in the upfront.

It’s still too early to get a good read on the networks, says Suzzie Malloni, senior national broadcast buying strategist at Empower MediaMarketing.

“It’s really going to be network by network,” she says. “It’s about where they want to wind up. Do they want to get money on the books or take the gamble and wait for scatter?”