• by Jack Feuer , May 14, 2008

Boy, the people who read The New York Times Web site are old. I don't mean waist-widening, middle-aged old. I don't mean lovably eccentric, grandparent old. I mean old. Old in the head old.

I know this because Monday, in an attempt to be upfront-timely, the Times discovered that the 21st century has begun and broke the news that there's prime-time erosion on network television, and viewers are embracing TiVo and streaming video. Accompanying the story was a comment board that posed the question: "How have streaming video on the Internet, digital recording and cable video on demand offerings changed your television viewing habits?"

You will no doubt be shocked to learn that the answer was unanimous: Now people watch what they want, when they want, and they don't want to watch commercials.

But what was fun was that almost all of the 50-odd responses appeared to be written by people old enough to be the original tenants in Levittown. Some don't have cable. Some don't even have TV sets. An alarming percentage watch PBS. And my personal favorite: "TV stays on as if it were a pet in the corner of the living room sleeping on a couch. It's company; however in my situation, the sound is off as I listen to my plugged in iPod playing over its speakers the voice of Nikolai Gedda."

Whoa. An opera-singer reference in a comment about media technology? Seriously?

You have to be pretty old to conflate iPods and Swedish tenors. (And it is more than a little unsettling to me that I actually know Nikolai Gedda is a Swedish tenor.) But here's the thing about that story and its comments: I didn't care.

You know why I didn't care? Because the upfront is old news. Rupert Murdoch old. Barbara Walters old.

Boy, we never learn, do we? The upfront is dying! The upfront is thriving! It's digital! New ratings! Bad ratings! Big parties! Little parties! No parties! Cable upfronts! Print upfronts! Kids upfronts! Upfronts all year long! Word-of-mouth upfronts! (Those are the most effective!)

Look, every year, a hearty chunk of availability in every medium is sold in one big bite. Some years the buyers win, some years the sellers, some years it's a wash. But it always happens. It will always happen.

You know why it will always happen? Because the upfront is -- stay with me, kids -- a good idea. A smart, sensible way to buy and sell time, space, air, electronic signals, dead tree products, ads on foreheads, whatever. And the idea is flexible enough to react and respond to even the most dramatic changes in the marketplace.

The upfront has lasted long enough to get old not because of inertia, but because it deserves to survive.

The upfront abides, dudes.

Now, can you find something new to talk about? I need to get back to the Times site and find out when Nikola Gedda is playing Los Angeles.