• by Wayne Friedman , April 13, 2009

Over the past couple of weeks, tens of millions of TV advertising dollars have been suddenly flowing in the second-quarter scatter market. But don't read too much into this regarding the health of the upfront market.

Media buyers say the late-moving marketplace -- forced by a late moving second-quarter option market -- crunched a typical four- or five-week sales period into a two- or three-week period. Also, TV deals, in general, are being done closer to air date than ever before.

One indication is pricing -- which has been at upfront levels for both broadcast and cable -- but not higher. Typically, the second-quarter scatter market has been an indicator of how the upfront market will perform.

Shelley Watson, senior vice president and the director of entertainment advertising at Santa Monica, Calif.-based media agency RPA, believes much of this activity was squeezed because of late-moving options.

TV advertisers typically decide on second options in mid-January. But this process was moved to mid-February as network sales executives gave TV marketers more leeway to make marketing decisions, given a weakening economic marketplace.

TV marketers are increasingly making late decisions when it comes to reading their own sales revenue results, says Mel Berning, executive vice president of advertising sales at A&E Networks.

As a result, Berning says "second scatter has been not bad, very close to air. The last weeks have been strong, making up for lost ground."

Bill Abbott, executive vice president of advertising sales for Hallmark Channel, says: "Things are being bought so much closer to air date. In this [economic] environment it is not uncommon." Asked to describe the market, Abbott said it was "active... but very hard to gauge."

With the upfront a couple of weeks away, many TV network sales executives and media buyers are bracing for a marketplace where many broadcast and cable networks' overall dollar volume could be down versus a year ago.

All this could result in many pricing rollbacks, or at best, flat or slightly higher pricing, when it comes to cost-per-thousand viewer [CPM[ prices.