• by Wayne Friedman , June 3, 2008

Media agency executives and network sales were back on the upfront trail yesterday--taking a break for the weekend--with the intent of completing the lion's share of broadcast network upfront take in the next few days.

Most media plans at major media agencies have been placed all over town, and analysts are classifying this as a modestly paced event, in contrast to years past. That's because advertising demand--while down a bit--is still forcing up some pricing.

While broadcast rating points are down--around 12% versus a year--upfront advertising dollars may be only down by about half that much. That will peg the broadcast part of the upfront market at around $8.3 billion to $8.5 billion.

"Advertising revenue is down only slightly," says one media agency executive--all of which is forcing some high-single-digit price increases on the cost-per-thousand viewers (CPMs). That means Fox could be getting 9% hikes, with ABC at around 8%. CBS would seemingly tuck in under that at 7%, with NBC grabbing lower increases.

Another analyst is saying some of the current network advertising demand may just be the shifting of dollars into the upfront period--money that would have been slotted to have been spent in the upcoming scatter market for the broadcast year 2008-2009.

In order to make their revenue sheets look more solid, media agency executives are expecting networks to sell slightly more inventory this upfront--to the low 80% levels from the mid 70% levels of a year ago.

Cable networks already seem to be positioning themselves to start moving. Analysts expect TBS and TNT to gain average 5% hikes in CPMs, and about the same gains for MTV, according to one media agency executive. Cable's pool of ratings points grew this past season--and that extra supply means somewhat lower price increase than the networks.

Analysts also expect some cable networks to be secure broadcast network like gains--and then some. ESPN is looking at just under a 10% CPM improvement over a year ago, and about the same lofty hikes at Scripps Networks' HGTV and Food Network, according to one executive.