• by Wayne Friedman , December 8, 2009

CBS confirms again what other senior network executives have said recently: The TV marketplace is on fire.

Les Moonves, president/CEO of CBS Corp., said at the UBS Media Conference on Tuesday: fourth-quarter scatter pricing has seen massive 25% price hikes in the cost-per-thousand viewer prices during the current scatter market period versus deals made in the upfront market this past summer.

"Over and over, we have heard from our ad agencies that they wish they had urged their clients to buy at the upfront," he said. This has amounted to around $100 million in overall fourth-quarter scatter dollars, according to reports.

Moonves also said the network had just a handful of commercials left to sell for next February's Super Bowl NFL event.

During last summer's weak selling upfront market, networks made the unusual move to sell less inventory to TV marketers (around 65% to 72% of their overall supplies) because deals were being inked at rates anywhere from 2% to 10% below 2008.

TV marketers make entire season deals with networks to get favorable rates and ratings guarantees. Network executives decided to sell less inventory then in the hope of rising prices for commercial inventory sold in the quarterly scatter marketplace.

While noting the strength in pricing of network programming, some media analysts said it isn't the case for all broadcast networks to pull in big overall scatter revenues. Many don't have enough inventory for sale, given some networks' heavy makegood situations.

ABC's outgoing President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw noted recently that the market is so strong that few, if any, advertisers are optioning to cancel first-quarter deals made during the upfront market. He said cancellation rates were at historically low levels.