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starts in earnest this morning
Furious four days going into the holidays
By Dave Lindorff
Broadcast upfront dealmaking was delayed an extra day this week as the networks spent the weekend and most of Monday cobbling together their programming and pricing proposals.
"The agencies all registered their budgets by Friday at the latest," says the head of upfront buying for a major media buying outfit, "and we had all expected to see the network proposals Monday morning, but now it's 5 p.m. and we still haven't seen anything yet."
By the end of the day Monday, several buyers still held out hopes of striking some deals late in the evening Monday, but most agreed that the real heavy negotiating wouldn't start until today, with everything winding up by Friday.
"I suspect things will move pretty fast this week once it all starts," says Dan Rank, head of broadcast buying at DDB Needham Worldwide.
A buyer at one major media shop said she expects the networks to all shoot for double digit CPM increases.
"They'll all try for that, and they may all get it. The question is how high the double digits will be. And I suspect that there will be a 5-6 percent spread between ABC and some of the other big networks."
She adds that the WB could also see big CPM gains. "They've got more money registered than they want to sell," she says, explaining, "The young women's market is what makes the ad world go around, and WB is the only one concentrating on it. Since they've got so much more demand than the inventory they want to sell, they'll get high prices for their inventory."
Others in the industry took a dimmer view of broadcast network prospects.
"They may try for double digit CPM increases," says a gruff Larry Blasius, head of national broadcast at TN Media, "but that doesn't mean we're paying double digit increases."
Most buyers agree that ABC's opening play will set the pace for the other networks. With its big ratings wins this past season, courtesy of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" buyers are predicting the network will try for a 20 percent CPM increase for its primetime programming. That would set an upper level for the other networks to strive for.
Underlying the strength of this broadcast upfront is the fact that the broadcast networks have had a good year, actually turning around a long history of declining ratings, and many agencies are predicting that this season could see a small gain in total share for broadcast.
Even so, the broadcast television industry is being pressed more strongly than ever before by the cable industry, whose early and hot upfront continued right through last week's broadcast program preview galas and into this week's broadcast bargaining.
"There is absolutely a trend toward cable," says Peter Gardiner, senior partner and media director at Bozell Worldwide.
"As an agency, we have been aggressively pushing our clients into cable, where you can target better and where the pricing is better."
Cable industry sources predict that this year's cable upfront will take in $4.6 billion, a billion dollars more than last year.
The broadcast upfront appears likely to do at least as well off of last year's record $7.2 billion upfront, buyers say.
-Dave Lindorff covers television for Media Life.
