• Wall Street Journal via Google, Tuesday, March 4, 2008 11 AM

Although the recession and writers' strike have left TV networks losing viewers, some ad buyers and network execs think the upfront market could be even stronger this year. As sales staff hold early meetings with media buyers, "we don't really see a market slowdown in spending at this time," says Mike Shaw, president of sales and marketing at ABC. "We have marketers coming to us and talking about early deals."

In recent years, some buyers have held back during the upfront and ended up having to pay more in scatter. And with prices for scatter up more than 40% over last year's upfront rates, some buyers say they expect clients to move more aggressively into the upfront this year. Still, cable is also using the upfront to cut into broadcast dominance as Time Warner, parent of TNT and TBS, is moving its presentation to the same week as the broadcast nets.

Says David Levy, president of Turner Broadcasting Sales and Turner Sports, "it's having the same opportunity when money is out there. We're not saying don't buy broadcast, but we're saying an over-reliance on broadcast is a problem in this marketplace."

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