• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 6, 2018

Knock, knock: TV’s upfront is calling. Are you going to pick up or let it go to voicemail?

It’s virtually March -- and if you haven’t started thinking about the upfront market, you are already behind. Check your return-on-media insider information investments at the door.

Here’s the good news: Many senior media-buying and selling executives might be in the same boat -- at least when it comes to future big-picture strategy.

Then there is NBCUniversal. Ready to work with 10% less prime-time inventory on that company’s networks and 20% overall? Just wait until all the networks go that route -- then jack up prices.

Newly revamped and soon-to-be smaller TV companies like 21st Century Fox are already planning big meetings (public?) with major media agencies. Also, possible competing TV executives may attend, such as Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships of NBCUniversal. NBC did one of these meetings recently.

Fewer -- and more pricey commercials -- could be a major topic.

Plus, you have Simulmedia’s Dave Morgan calling out traditional TV networks to get their act together when it comes to sales attribution -- looking for those direct trend lines leading from an advertising exposure to a specific consumer sale.

TV doesn’t have that -- digital does. But this is not necessarily bad news. As Morgan notes, we all know TV has superior effectiveness. It just needs better real-time granularity, right? Small, medium and increasingly large brand advertisers are already additive to real-media sales impact tools from digital.

But there is more to be worried about -- albeit down the road. One glaring example is what has occurred at the social media star Snap. Veteran TV advertising sales executive Jeff Lucas went there two years ago from Viacom. He left Snap last month. 

The good news is that Snap has done amazing well. The bad? Many of its recent -- and now sustaining -- gains have come from programmatic ad efforts. How big? Reports suggest that a whopping 90% come from programmatic efforts.

That means the senior ad executives currently pitching major TV-centric advertising brands in face-to-face meetings to shift budgets to new digital platforms may take a back seat for now. (In the long term, when growth curves flatten out, this may be a different story.)

Want to know what is going to happen this upfront? Will YouTube, Facebook and Twitter continue to slip and fall when it comes to brand safety issues? You can bet on it.

No way any of those digital media sites can eliminate all their inappropriate stuff. None have enough “human monitors” to eye down all the bad content.

So maybe look for TV to have another good upfront -- flat or slightly up from last year. Then again, maybe this is just March talking -- or roaring -- like a lion. September may be for the lambs. Either way, a bunch of animals could be on the loose.