Two things can be said about this year's broadcast upfront.
One, it's taken the longest time in memory to kick off, starting just yesterday, many weeks after the networks presented their fall shows to media buyers.
Two, it's been the hardest upfront to figure out.
Forecasts have been all over the place on how much advertisers would commit to the broadcast networks and whether the networks would get the upper hand and pull off price increases, or whether buyers would gain the upper hand and beat prices down when negotiations began.
Certainly, media planners and buyers have been puzzled, as came out in a Media Life survey that was posted last week.
In most years, readers have a pretty good sense of where the upfront is headed in the days before it kicks off.
Not this year.
The general sense was that this upfront would be weaker than upfronts in the recent past because of the economy, but there seemed to be something of a divide between those who saw it coming in modestly below and those who thought it would turn out to be a bust.
As of early last week, many media buyers thought it could well be weeks before the upfront started, and many weeks after that before it wrapped up.
Asked when they thought the upfront would start, 38 percent of respondents agreed with this statement: "In the next few weeks. Talks are still continuing as broadcasters dig in their heels on price."
Another 12 percent thought it wouldn't start until the end of July.
Just 26 percent guessed that it would begin in the coming several days. They were the closest.
As it happened, some deals were coming together going into the long weekend, with the expectation that the upfront would really get moving on the first day back, which was yesterday.
The rest, 24 percent, thought the upfront had already started.
Typically upfronts wrap up in a matter of days, but readers didn't think that would happen this year.
Asked when they thought the upfront would finish, most saw it going until late July at the least.
Here's how the answers broke down: early July, 2 percent; mid July, 7 percent; late July, 23 percent; early August, 23 percent; mid August, 12 percent; late August, 23 percent.
The rest, 9 percent, chose this answer: "Who knows? At this point, I'm not even sure there will be an upfront this year."
Most saw total spending on broadcast well down this year, presumably believing the networks would hold back inventory if they couldn't get the prices they were asking.
Just 4 percent thought total sales would be up.
Seven percent thought spending would come in flat to last year's $9 billion and change, while 36 percent thought it would come in down 1 percent to 4 percent.
Just under a quarter, 23 percent, thought spending would be down by 5 percent, and 30 percent though spending would be down 10 percent or more.
Readers thought CBS would lead in upfront sales, and by a healthy margin, 61 percent. ABC was at 20 percent of readers, while Fox was at 16 percent. Just 2 percent thought NBC would lead the upfront in total sales.
Readers believed CBS would also lead in gaining pricing increases. Some 47 percent thought the network would see the largest increases. Next came ABC at 25 percent. Fox came in at 10 percent, even though it won the past several seasons in ratings. The younger-skewing CW came in at 12 percent and NBC and MyNetworkTV got 3 percent each.
The largest share of readers thought the networks would be able to hold prices at last year's levels, at 20 percent, and 13 percent thought prices would be up.
A good share of the rest thought prices would be down modestly, between 1 percent and 5 percent.
But a healthy share, 16 percent, believed prices would tumble more than 5 percent, presumably believing that the networks would cave to buyers' demands and chop prices to move inventory.
