Syndicators are bracing for their turn in the grim upfront that has so far proved humbling for the broadcast networks and has shattered any illusion that cable television is immune to a soft ad market.

Media buyers say the syndication upfront is in its earliest stages, with budgets only now being registered. But if initial wheeling and dealing is any indication of what’s to come, syndicators are also facing a difficult market, with ad revenue likely to be a little better than flat to last year on prices barely up from those paid in 2005.

That’s a shift from a few weeks ago. Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen in May projected a 4 percent increase, to $3 billion. David Joyce, an analyst with New York-based investment firm Miller Tabak, expected to see a 4.5 percent increase, to just over $2.9 billion.

The market has since soured. Some advertisers have cut budgets while others are deciding to hold off, knowing there will be no lack of inventory when they do decide to move in.

“Increases are modest at best with anything, network, cable and syndication,” says Andy Donchin, executive vice president and director of national broadcast at Carat. “There is less money in the marketplace and there are more rating points out there. There is a lot we can buy.”

Syndication, like network and cable TV, is also suffering from increased competition.

The upfronts in recent years were driven by a scarcity of commercial time, a legacy from the era when three ruled, parceling out their limited inventory to a throng of advertisers willing to bid up prices to get on the top few shows.

Today, a multitude of broadcast and cable networks, along with a slew of rating points on syndicated properties, have flooded the market with inventory. The effect of this increased inventory, coupled with only modest demand, has been to hold down prices.

Now the internet and other new media are adding to the glut. Buyers say the internet is evolving into a viable alternative to television for many advertisers.

For their part, syndicators tell Media Life it’s too early to predict how syndication will fare in the upfront. And contrary to the more recent forecasts, they believe demand will be healthy because of the continued solid ratings for long-running programs like “Oprah” and “Seinfeld,” independent of how the broadcast and cable upfronts are faring.

Meanwhile, media buyers say the cable upfront is slowly getting underway, with a handful of deals signed but many others still pending. Most forecasters had projected that cable would post a solid increase over 2005, perhaps 7 percent. The outlook now is for a modest uptick of about 2 percent to 3 percent.

The network TV upfront has been dragging since last month and isn’t likely to be completed for at least another week. Early projections for a slight increase in spending were squashed a while back, and buyers now expect spending to be slightly down from last year, with average price increases in the low-single-digit percentages.

Much of this weakness stems from the merger of UPN and the WB into the CW, which isn’t expected to generate as much revenue as the two separate networks. And buyers say NBC is accepting lower prices than last year after two seasons of ratings declines.

Fox has reportedly finished its negotiations with a bump in spending over last year’s $1.5 billion. The CW and CBS are finalizing deals. ABC is moving along but NBC is dragging.

“It depends on the agency,” says Donchin. “There’s no rush and we’re all doing it at our own pace. But we all want to have a summer, so it will get done eventually.”