• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, April 24, 2007

If it's May, it must be upfront season, when the broadcast networks try to woo media buyers with filet mignon and sushi, parties at Lincoln Center and wisecracks from Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel. While the upfront market has been bashed by critics as a bloated old-media anachronism, few would question the central role it still plays in deciding how billions of dollars in TV advertising are spent each year.

It's no surprise, then, that the Internet equivalent of the TV networks - Yahoo, AOL and msn - are trying to grab some of the glitz with their own "digital" upfronts. Yahoo kicked things off with its "infront" presentation in February, while AOL and MSN (in conjunction with NBC and MSNBC.com) were scheduled to hold their own events for advertisers and agencies in late April.

Despite all the talk of media convergence, the Web portals still covet what the TV networks have: the lion's share of ad budgets. At Yahoo's presentation in a rented Broadway theater, its chief advertising sales officer, Wenda Millard, pointed up that the Internet claims only six percent of ad spending.

With the emergence of broadband video, the big portals see the opportunity to speed up the shift of ad dollars from TV to the Web. But is adopting the old-media ritual of the upfront a smart way to boost online advertising?

Agency executives aren't persuaded yet. "I think it's more of an educational play for the larger media community, both for clients and agencies," says David Cohen, executive vice president and U.S. director of digital communications at Universal McCann. He likens online media-buying more to TV's scatter market, the buying of unsold ad time that goes on throughout the season. Scott Symonds, executive media director at AKQA, is an even bigger skeptic. "I don't see the value proposition attached to it," he says of a digital upfront.

Certainly, the upfront is facing upheaval as advertisers try to gain more control over the buying process. An effort by eBay to launch an online market for TV time has been stalled by resistance from sellers. Earlier this year, the 4As' TV committee began a push to have the networks cut back their May presentations.

Even so, AOL eagerly copied the upfront with its "First Look" event on April 17 in New York, with previews of some major programming initiatives. The new offerings were expected to include Gold Rush II, a follow-up to the online treasure hunt created by Mark Burnett that debuted last year on AOL.

With Randy Falco leaving NBCU in 2006 to become AOL chairman and CEO, AOL's move isn't surprising. "We think it would be a mistake not to be a part of the conversation when people are considering where they're going to place ads against video assets in the coming year," explains Kathy Kayse, executive VP of sales and partnership alliances for AOL.

Universal McCann's Cohen predicts that ultimately the lines between buying time on TV and video will disappear. For now, though, it looks like the Internet will still have to be satisfied with scraps from the TV table.