• Ad Age, Thursday, July 5, 2007 10:30 AM

Media buyers are still searching for the end of the upfront marketplace as both cable and syndication deals are still under negotiation. However, the latter seems closer to finishing up due to carryover from broadcast and the medium's willingness to accept commercial ratings.

Top syndie shows are getting high-single-digit cost increases, while the rest are in low single digits in the roughly $2 billion marketplace. Cable nets are also securing high-single-digit percentage price hikes and some, like Turner and Lifetime, are close to done. But others, like MTV, are trying to get agreements that take into account their longer commercial pods, and audience drop-offs,which can impact on commercial-ratings guarantees.

While MTV and media buyer OMD have announced pacts ahead of the market in the past -- one last year was pegged at $300 million -- nothing has publicly cropped up yet in this year's negotiations.

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