• by John Gaffney , May 19, 2003

Report Cards: As the buyers and sellers roll up their collective sleeves and get on down to actually doing business now, and before we start hearing about the big blockbuster deals, let's not forget the past upfront presentations. The way I see it and hear it, you don't need to look among the networks for the big winner over the past two weeks of hype and glory. The winners were the cable networks. Instead of thumping their chests and laying out their new shows like they were something we all hadn't thought of before, the cable networks - especially the Viacom properties, the Hearst properties and Court TV - played the upfront intelligently and creatively. They presented more than shows. In the case of Viacom, they presented a new way to do business. They positioned themselves differently than they had before the upfront started. This will be more important next year I believe, and it will also be copied more by the networks themselves next year. I talked with one buyer in confidence at a big agency last week who said his first meeting this week was not with a big network. It was with a cable network to see how he could get into the action. But then again, it's only Monday.

But Seriously, Folks: I'm the first to trash cable news channels for covering irrelevant garbage like celebrity political views when they should be covering something else. But I have to say that the post-Iraqi war news packages have been impressive. There's a lot of bad enough stuff to go around, I guess. Al-Queda is on a tear. So is SARS. So are the Iraqi people. The coverage I've seen over the past weeks has been straightforward and informative. I'll give credit where it's due.

At The Buzzer: Hey I love an underdog, too. But tell me the people at the NBA aren't hiding under desks hoping that the underrated and underexposed Detroit Pistons don't get a trip to the Shaq and Kobe-less finals.