• by Wayne Friedman , December 7, 2011

Chase Carey, deputy chairman, president and COO of News Corp., echoed much of what other senior TV executives said about the TV advertising market recently: It's soft, but overall not alarmingly so.

Carey, speaking at the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference, said that News Corp. was in a good place, however, because it sold a heavy amount of its commercial inventory during upfront in June. Right now, going forward, he says there has been few cancellations for any of TV advertisers' long-term 2011-2012 broadcast year media buys.

Though down somewhat now in the fourth quarter, he sees somewhat of an uptick in the early 2012 as TV marketers start a fresh calendar media year.

He talks about the NFL being a "fantastic" business -- this in light of reports that the league is looking to ask its broadcast networks for major price increases which could raise their annual license fee to the league by more than 60%. He says the Fox Broadcasting network is looking forward to another big mid-season push,  thanks to long-time rating industry leader, "American Idol", which will start its 11th season next month.