• Ad Age, Tuesday, April 4, 2006 10:17 AM

Two, maybe three short years ago, the Web's biggest publishers assured the advertising community that the upfront model, long used and some might say abused by television and cable networks, would be dead in the Internet era. Hmm. As the cable and TV networks gear up for another upfront hunting season, many Web publishers have also jumped on the bandwagon, which you could argue is rather curious given the time-shifting nature of the new media world. The upfront ploy is more likely an attempt by Web publishers to detract advertiser attention away from overpriced TV and cable offerings, a reminder of the many options before them these days. Not only that, but accountability being what it is today--everything--marketers are now narrowly focused on "how to get the most bang for their investments," as one media director notes. Of course, there is a finite amount of prime broadband TV real estate, and so an upfront also calls attention to that fact. For example, AOL, in late 2005, had already sold out its video inventory for all of '06 on In2TV, its new classic TV programming site. Yahoo, MSN and other video-rich sites usually sell out of their annual inventory for big-time sectors like entertainment and finance by the end of January. Now, smaller players like Heavy.com, iFilm.com and Screenvision are also entering the upfront game, primarily as an attempt "to pre-empt those dollars going into TV," Heavy.com's co-CEO said. In the end, said one AOL exec, competing with the TV upfront is "a great publicity stunt."

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