• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, December 7, 2009

The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (CAB) said this year's upfront came in down 13%, but projected that cable networks overall would bring in sales up 1.8% for 2009.

The CAB forecast that networks would pull in $18.7 billion this year, up $330 million over 2008.

The upfront, which covers time bought well into 2010, brought in $6.6 billion. The CAB said the scatter market is robust this quarter.

CAB CEO Sean Cunningham stated that with budgets "under intense scrutiny, we did a lot of work with agencies and advertisers" to convey cable's positions vis-à-vis original programming, ratings and reach analysis.

The CAB said networks did more upfront deals this year with "branded, multimedia elements than any previous upfront, with approximately 20% of all deals extending beyond TV ad inventory."

It added that the $18.7 billion and $6.6 billion figures do not include revenues from product placement or Web extensions.

In 2001, the CAB said that overall volume was $11.8 billion.