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where art thou?
This was to be a hot week for deals. It wasn't.
By Elizabeth White
After the announcement of four large deals for TBS and TNT late last week, it looked like the cable upfront market was about to catch fire.
Instead, in this week when many deals were expected, there was little more than smoke.
With the smoke clearing, it looks like the upfront is about where it was last Thursday, when the TBS and TNT deals were announced.
Confirming the halt is the special spin language of cable network spokesfolks, who yesterday were tossing out phrases such as "still in the hopper" and "nothing yet with details."
A month ago, as the broadcast upfront was beginning, the feeling was that the cable upfront would not start until after July 4 and could last into August.
Earlier this week, the thinking was that the cable upfront would move much more quickly, despite the huge amount of inventory, wrapping up by the week of July 23.
Now the thinking is back to a slower pace.
"[The late July] time frame sounds reasonable," says Don Cole, director of media at Fletcher, Martin, and Ewing.
"It’s hard to predict that sort of thing. There’s no cavalry charge, and it’s going more slowly. If in broadcast, you’ve got six networks to buy, in cable you’ve got 74 to choose from, so you can buy around the networks."
Many of the cable networks were optimistic at the start of this week that some major deals would be concluded by today, but by yesterday most had extended their time frame for at least another week.
They still expect to wrap up the majority of business by the end of the month.
Turner Broadcast Sales, which represents TBS and TNT, anticipates that 50 percent of its upfront business will be concluded this week.
Lifetime, Discovery Networks, USA Networks and Viacom had no new information to report. In June, deals between The Media Edge and Lifetime and USA kicked off the cable upfront.
Media buyers, for their part, doubt that the cable upfront will snowball in the same way as the broadcast upfront, which moved relatively quickly after some major price breaks and deals were struck.
With more inventory and networks available, cable has fewer high-pressure buys than broadcast.
And since buyers have already cut deals with the broadcasters, some of the early fears over an extended upfront have subsided.
"In general terms, I’d say when broadcasters catch a cold, cable catches pneumonia," says Cole.
"It was more important for people to lay their money on networks. Even though there’s been considerable fragmentation, you still need to lay that network base. Not that cable is an afterthought, but it’s less pressing unless you have very specific needs."
July 13, 2001
© 2001 Media Life
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