• by Wayne Friedman , December 2, 2009

Mike Shaw, the outgoing president of advertising sales of ABC Television Network, is leaving during a historically high TV marketplace period -- similar to the one he came in on.

The history this time is around first-quarter 2010 options, he says.

"It's the highest in the history of the business," he says. "Virtually nothing has been canceled." It's all part of the current resurgence of the TV business in the scatter market that started in September and looks to be continuing well into 2010.

TV advertisers typically can cancel up to 25% of their first-quarter upfront buys. The industry average has been that advertisers return 3% to 5% of upfront commitments. Shaw would not disclose specifics, but media buyers concur that many TV marketers are keeping virtually all their upfront deals intact.

"The balance in the marketplace has been more or less restored," he notes. Shaw notes cost-per-thousand program pricing hikes are 20% to 25% or more over deals made during the upfront market. "I wish I had more GRPs [gross ratings points] to sell," he says.

Such stats came after an equally historical slow-moving, weak-selling, upfront market where pricing rollbacks of 2% to 10% and more were typical for many networks.

In anticipation of this weakness, TV networks sold less than usual commercial supplies -- around 65% to 75% of their overall inventory -- postponing sale of extra commercial avails until the current scatter selling period.

Strong ad results have extended to ABC online digital player, says Shaw, where inventory has been in nearly sell-out mode for the last two years. Much of this, he says, has to do with the limited supply of inventory ABC sells online.

Ten years ago, in September 2000, Shaw took over for then-head of advertising sales Marvin Goldsmith, who had just led ABC through a record setting upfront market, which garnered ABC the largest take of any network and hefty double-digit percent increases in program pricing. The rise was on the back of a strong debut season of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire."

In regard to Shaw's 10-year history as the head of ABC advertising sales, he says the time is right to leave. "We have a great team in place," he says. He'll now be an advisor for ABC, working on special projects for marketing and ABC's station affiliates.

Regarding his sometimes outspoken opinions over specific media issues, Shaw says much was choreographed with his entire team. This included, for instance, his push for marketers to pay for more DVR playback of network viewed shows -- up to seven days.

"I was the voice of the message," he says. "But I wasn't always the vision. Our team, our company, came up with it. I couldn't be more proud. The company has been fantastic."