• by David Goetzl , March 10, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla.-- The upfront will die. Long live the upfront. At least until 2018?

When asked to play the role of futurist at the AAAAs conference and project forward a decade, Carat CEO Sarah Fay said an array of factors--perhaps a digital revolution, maybe kudzu-like growth in mobile marketing--will lead to the bazaar's demise. "I don't think there will be an upfront," she said. "We will have shifted so dramatically that the upfront will be irrelevant."

A fellow panelist at Friday's event, Horizon Media CEO Bill Koenigsberg, stopped short of predicting an upfront abandonment, but suggested that changes (or perhaps wishes) will come--notably a move toward a calendar-year purchasing cycle. Of course, that's been proposed for several years now--with some advertisers having no appetite to wait past 2008, let alone 2018.

Koenigsberg also called for another switch: "The name should be changed. It should be called the outfront, not the upfront."

While Fay offered a prediction of the upfront's downfall, Initiative USA head Tim Spengler said not so fast. "There will still be advertisers' desire to lock up media long-term," he said.

He did, however, suggest that buying might move into a sort of dichotomy--with upfront deals taking on more complexity, such as negotiations for exclusivity positions and multimedia agreements. But in order to heighten focus on those areas, Spengler suggested there would be increasing use of electronic exchanges to facilitate run-of-the-mill purchasing. Initiative has been one of the few agencies to use the eBay Media Marketplace to buy cable TV this year.

Optimedia's Anthony Young said marketers' frustrations about buying TV seem to be worldwide. He's had experience in 16 countries, and said complaints have surfaced in all of them. Of the U.S. upfront, he said "it does work." Then, adding tongue-in-cheek: "In every country, it doesn't seem to work either."