Upfront Postmortem: Buyers Assess This Year’s 'Ugly' Market

Networks secure big CPM gains, but trouble is on the horizon

Given how strong the scatter market had been last season, and the network execs' brash predictions of a lucrative upfront after a couple of lean years, buyers had entered upfront negotiations prepared for the worst—or so they thought. "We knew it was going to be ugly," admitted one buyer, "but we had no idea."

Chart: Carlos Monteiro

While CBS Corp. chairman, CEO and president Les Moonves' bold pre-upfront predictions of double-digit gains may have seemed at the time like a pipe dream, that ended up becoming more of a benchmark in this year's robust market.

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