• by May 26, 2005

THE STUFF THAT UPFRONT DREAMS ARE MADE OF -- It's nice to see ABC back where it belongs: In the prime-time catbird's seat, pulling trade press strings and stoking the upfront marketplace. It's just like old times. Like all those years when the Six Sigma karate geeks at General Electric were calling all the shots were nothing but a really bad and very boring dream. Suddenly, we've woken to find ourselves back on the other side of the television rainbow, with Auntie Em, Jake, and Marv, and you and you and you. Except this isn't Kansas, and it's hard to believe in outlandish tales anymore. So when we read things like, "ABC Wraps Up Upfront Deals With Agencies," we're really not sure what to make of them.

It's not just that we know how easy it is to spin naïve ad trade reporters. (Take it from us, it's that easy.) It's that we don't even know why they bother spinning anymore. Do they really think that media buyers and their clients are that gullible anymore? That simply planting a story is going to make people believe that in the span of less than a week, ABC has sold out virtually its entire prime-time inventory for next year? If they did, they managed to do so without closing deals with any of the buyers we've been speaking to. And they've done it while the other major networks are still negotiating in earnest.

But what do we know? The upfront marketplace has always been a closed and secretive marketplace. And it's one that is still set, managed and even defined by the networks themselves. Why? Because it's mainly an illusion. An archaic blend of well-timed hype and creative bookkeeping in which a consensus is built by whichever network controls the market that year. What we don't understand, is how it can continue to operate that way in an era of Sarbanes-Oxley corporate oversight.

When ABC holds its official upfront "wrap-up" briefing next week, it's sales management will insist that demand for its inventory was strong and sales were fast and furious, but they won't exactly be turning over their sales department ledger sheets to reporters inspect. Our question is how can any network get away with touting sales results that could have a material impact on its corporate earnings, and the value of stock to company's shareholders? Because it apparently doesn't have the effect people think it does, at least not the people who dwell on Wall Street.

"After several consecutive years of speculation regarding the television upfront market, investors seem to finally realize that it isn't a very good indicator of demand for advertising," is how Merrill Lynch ad diva Lauren Rich Fine put it today in her weekly investors' newsletter: "Fine Thoughts on Advertising, Publishing, & Education." This week, the emphasis should have been on education, because Fine's observation is a solid one.

TV MATHEMATICS 101 - We always knew the residents living on Sesame Street knew how to count, but we've rarely seen them go much past the two-figure range. On May 20th, when Sesame Workshop actor Kevin Clash was awarded an Emmy Award for providing the ticklish voice of Elmo, they proved they could also count into the six-figure range. The Emmy was "Sesame Street's" 101st, which would be a milestone on any street, but was enough to land Sesame's block in the Guinness Book of World Records for setting a new record for most Emmy wins by a television series. Heck, we didn't even know the Guinness folks were keeping tabs on such things. So whose Emmy record did the show break? According to Guinness World Records COO Alistair Richards, it was "their own."