• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 6, 2007

Wrap your media calculators around this: overflowing make-goods, weird comparisons for the new live commercial ratings, lower program ratings, and now a strike. Headaches in TV Adland? Oh, yeah - and see me in 2009.

First off -- live program ratings are down 10% for the broadcast networks. No matter how you measure it, that's not good. Live program is still the way for 80% of the country's TV users -- they don't have DVRs - and that says continued broadcast erosion.

Secondly, last year's make-goods are being rolled over into this year's schedule -- one that already had some inventory problems because networks sold more in the upfront.

Thirdly, a long-term strike will mean even lower ratings --especially when networks move more dramatically into airing reruns. (The best of the worst-case scenario favors CBS, which, as we all know, does well when it comes to re-running all its crime dramas.)

Where does this take us? A two-month strike will still create havoc on new scripted TV shows into the February sweep. In the past, normal under-delivery of upfront deals were 3% to 5%. Early returns now put this year's numbers at 10% below.  What will those numbers be like in May 2008?

And that's not the least of it.

This is the beginning of development season for TV executives. If networks are slow in developing stuff for next year, you can almost be assured that lower-rated new programming -- stuff that should have been canceled -- will get another chance a year from now. That's not good. The odds are that, this poor performing stuff will only drift lower, contributing to more audience deficiencies in TV deals a year from now.

Did I hear someone say cash back?  A shudder just raced up the spines of every networks sales executive on Sixth Avenue.

Oh, yeah. That brings me to the upfront. If you think the upfront 2007 was a testy affair, with all the new commercial ratings data, imagine how raucous upfront 2008 will be.

This season media executives were worried about comparable viewing numbers, for this year's new live commercial plus three days media deals. Right now the common theory is to compare that data against last year's live program ratings -- which isn't the best of comparisons, but a nice way to make marketers feel comfortable for those tens of millions of dollars they spent last June.

Next year should have been the year to compare apples to apples -- live commercial ratings to live commercial ratings.  That'll have to wait a year because it'll still be apples to pears analysis -- that is, unless the strike lasts for 12 months.

With all that in mind, start exercising those fingers for some calculator-frenzied, mind-bending TV media posting sessions the next couple of months.  If you get frustrated, just wait a year and reset your electronic abacus one more time -- when  DVRs will be used by 40% of the country .