A final salvo of deal making last week put a bow on the bulk of the cable entertainment upfront market, as ad sales bosses wrote business at premiums of 8-10 percent over last year’s levels.
Turner Entertainment Networks closed its final deal on June 14, a few days after NBC Universal and Viacom. The home of TNT, TBS and truTV locked in CPM increases between 9-10 percent above last year and boosted overall ad sales volume by as much as 20 percent.
Also completing the remainder of their negotiations with media buyers were Discovery Communications, Fox Cable Networks and A&E Networks, which added the female-targeted Lifetime to its roster last summer. At press time (June 17), Comcast Networks was breasting the tape while Scripps Networks was proceeding, deliberately.
All told, cable dollar volume could be up some 18-20 percent, bringing client commitments to between $7.79 billion–$7.92 billion.
According to the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, last year’s cable upfront was down 13 percent to $6.6 billion. In 2008, cable nets landed $7.65 billion in upfront dollars.