Advertising Age is going way, way out on a limb (sarcasm) by predicting that this year's upfront won't be up over last years. It cites the credit crisis and looming economic depression among the culprits.
It's worth taking a look at, especially the PDF chart of "How It'll All Shake Out". It predicts only FOX will be up, but only slightly versus last years estimate of $1.9 billion. It predicts ABC will be flat, and that CBS and NBC will be slightly down. The prediction for the CW was a bit more dire: just "down".
Based on the AdAge estimates CBS was the big winner last year with $2.45 billion followed by ABC with $2.4 billion. With ABC live plus same day ratings off 16% versus last year and a "flat" prediction either scale carries a premium or they figure they'll push the live plus seven day ratings.
The biggest surprise to me was that last year FOX only marginally beat NBC in the upfronts by AdAge's estimate: $1.9 billion to $1.8 billion. And amazingly they have the C-Dub pulling in $1.8 billion last year which was down from the $1.9 billion in 2006.
That it's even remotely possible under any circumstance that FOX only pulled in $100 million more via the upfronts last year just goes to show that I completely lack any understanding of how television advertising actually works.
I wonder how much of the CW upfront money ultimately went to staffing the phones for the barrage calls saying, "We want our money back!" Update: Commenter "Statlc" offers up a probable explanation below: the PDF chart on the left is incorrect. He cites the article which states clearly: The CW's total is expected to decline 15% to $560 million.
That CW figure is shocking to me in comparison to the other nets. Who exactly are the advertisers buying with them that would be worth so much?
I figured that FOX was low due to the fewer programming hours each week, but the CW figure makes me doubt that too.
The only way it would make any sense to me is if FOX sold only 30% of its non-Super Bowl programming last year and CW sold 100% of its inventory for the next 5 years. But I was under the impression FOX had sold around 75% of its primetime inventory (excluding Super Bowl) via the upfront last year, and that’s either way, way off, Ad Age is, OR CW sprinkles magic pixie dust on the buyers
My guess is that they got it wrong in the .pdf file, because in the article it says “The CW’s total is expected to decline 15% to $560 million”. That’s still more than I thought, though.
Statlc, Occam’s Razor suggests your explanation is the best one
is there a way to calculate the profit each network makes? im guessing this is just advertising sold during upfronts, but it doesnt factor in other things.
is that kind of information safe guarded and only released when the networks want it to be?
they just accidentally reprinted nbc’s numbers for cw. statlc numbers seem correct.
nbc is expected to make less money than fox in upfront prime time ad sales programming 2/3 the amount of content.
In a year where the super bowl and Olympics should make their lineup more desirable.
pathetic.
In short, no.
You could probably pay a high-priced consultant a lot of money to get you in the right ballpark. But you can’t really derive it from public info because all the networks are part of big corporate conglomerates and are not under any obligation to break out the television networks’ reporting separately. While we can read things like NBC Universal is one of GE’s better operating groups, how NBC’s primetime revenue plays into that isn’t easy to intuit.
do they sell ads for prime time sports at the upfronts? if not that could explain why nbc’s numbers are so low. (Sunday night football, super bowl, Olympics)
From what I’ve read the Super Bowl and Olympic buys are separate from the upfront. Not sure about SNF.
FOX only has 15 hours of primetime to sell, far less than the 22 hours for ABC, NBC, and CBS. Therefore, in terms of total they would be less, but they will probably have the highest CPM.
Great point, Alfie.
FOX only has 15 hours of primetime to sell, far less than the 22 hours for ABC, NBC, and CBS. Therefore, in terms of total they would be less, but they will probably have the highest CPM.
Great point, Alfie.