• by Wayne Friedman , July 6, 2009

As this year's TV upfront market finally begins to churn this week, there is one benefit to the expected weak and late TV advertising bazaar: down-to-earth TV budgets.

"Fiscal conservatism based on the economy means we are looking at more realistic numbers," says Rich Goldfarb, senior vice president of media sales for National Geographic Channel.

"We'll have better information in July than we would have had in May and June," says Mel Berning, executive vice president of advertising sales for A&E Networks.

In quicker-moving markets, marketers estimate more of their budgets and make adjustments later. In such cases, programming mixes are decided later in the process -- typically in late July and August -- following up on initial deals made in early June.

Media sales executives say there is always some gamesmanship that goes on during the upfront process, where budgets are adjusted higher or lower to take advantage of moving price fluctuations. A&E's Berning did caution there is always some level of revision in TV advertisers' budgets.

Gary Carr, senior vice president and director of national broadcast for TargetCast, believes some tweaks come from more companies' marketing executives seeking approval of their financial officers before committing to long-term TV and media budgets.

Such realities will be of little solace to some TV programming sales executives, with upfront revenue estimates said to be anywhere from 10% to 15% below that of overall upfront volume last year. Credit Suisse, for example, expects the broadcast part of the upfront to be down 15% to $7.9 billion and the cable market flat or slightly down at $7.6 billion.

Rumors -- still unconfirmed -- say NBC Universal and GroupM have finished their upfront process at 7% reductions in cost per thousand viewers on the NBC network and 3% lower CPMs price on their cable networks.

In 2007, NBC and Group M struck an $800 million to $900 million upfront deal across the NBC network and its cable networks, with an estimated 7% increase on cost per thousand viewers.

At that time, executives estimated that $600 million went to the NBC network; about $200 million for the USA Network cable group; approximately $20 million for Telemundo; and $10 million for all NBC's digital platforms.

A 2009 deal would be drastically different. Plus, a decline of 7% in CPMs would be sharply less than what media agency executives have been expecting. They said their clients were demanding double-digit percentage pricing cuts across the board from broadcast, cable and syndication programmers.

More than a few media executives called the potential NBC Universal/ Group M "an island." NBC is unique because it is the fourth-place-rated network and is making a major programming change to prime time -- moving Jay Leno to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday.

"ABC, Fox and CBS might look at that deal and say this has nothing to do with us," says one network sales executive.

At the same time, if indeed the NBC network is only rolling back deals at 7%, this would be good news for the other big broadcast networks. ABC, CBS and Fox should then expect more modest rollbacks in the 2% to 3% range, according to another cable network sales executive.

Key to the NBC/Group M deal, say executives, is what NBC cable networks bring to the table. USA Network has grown substantially -- 15% to an average 3.2 million overall viewers in the second quarter and 9% among 18-49 viewers to 1.4 million. Sister cable network Bravo has also made ratings gains.

Making USA Network even more attractive, according to media-buying executives: its pricing is somewhat less than what other cable networks are charging.