• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 31, 2005

The 2005-06 upfront television marketplace was supposed to be one of the orderly ones, in which media buyers took their time in an effort to reorder the national television marketplace. Instead, it has proven to be as fast and furious as any in memory with at least two major networks nearing "sell-outs" of their upfront prime-time ad inventory at cost increases that were higher than many marketers had planned for. At least that's the consensus building from reports in major trade magazines and financial publications over the past several days, which citing unnamed sources, put ABC at nearly done, and CBS "significantly" done in their upfront sales efforts at CPMs as much as 6 percent higher than their 2004-05 upfront deals.

Since Advertising Age first reported May 20th that "The TV Upfront Is Off And Running" with early deals breaking on ABC, the marketplace reportedly has picked up momentum according to five major trade publications and financial news outlets including Advertising Age, Mediaweek, Reuters, Television Week, and The Wall Street Journal, which quote anonymous sources claiming ABC is nearly wrapped up with deals that fetched healthy CPM gains, and with CBS well underway with comparable CPM gains.

While no network sources have been on the record about the deal-making, ABC is expected to hold a press briefing this week to give its official account. According to a report by Reuters on Monday, ABC "could book nearly $2 billion," upfront about $1.6 billion last year.

None of the other news reports to date have speculated on upfront sales volume, but most of projected that NBC - the previous upfront market leader - would experience cuts in its upfront sales volume.

The coverage has also been sparse on which Madison Avenue players have been most active, though early reports had OMD moving the first with a deal on ABC. On Monday, Mediaweek reported that OMD and Zenith Media were "most aggressive," with Starcom and MediaVest "in the middle of the pack and Magna and Group M sitting back longer."

Mediaweek also reported that the cable and syndication upfront markets were at a "virtual standstill," with Madison Avenue focused on closing deals with the broadcast networks. If so, that would signal a reversal of market strategies from last year when the cable network market moved first and when more than half a billion dollars worth of budgets moved to cable.