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."
Upfront Postmortem: Buyers Assess This Year’s 'Ugly' Market
Networks secure big CPM gains, but trouble is on the horizon
