Media Buyers Push Smaller Upfront Rate Hikes, NBC Ups Volume

Broadcast networks, on the road to completing much of their upfront deal-making, are operating in a marketplace that is still concerned about weak pricing and volume gains.

"Broadcast is pretty much done; cable is moving slowly," says one veteran media-buying executive.

One issue of greater concern may be overall upfront broadcast volume. Initially, upfront broadcast volume was estimated to be down 1% to 3% from the $9.2 billion totals pulled in in 2013. Some of that money, according to executives, is being shifted to cable networks, which are poised to hit the $10 billion level in upfront advertising deals.

Network cable advertising sales executives believe much of the cable upfront process will take place soon. Some media executives are still alarmed that broadcast networks might be looking at greater overall volume losses in the upfront -- down about 5% versus 2013. This is due to viewership erosion, as well as TV marketers' efforts to shift money to cable networks and some digital video platforms.

But C7 still remains a wild card, other executives say -- depending on the number of upfront TV advertisers shifting to a C7 Nielsen viewing deal-making metric from C3. A marketplace shift to a C7 rating guarantee to marketers -- C7, the average commercial ratings plus seven days of time-shifted data -- could boost overall volume for national TV broadcasters about 2% to 3%. This will come from adding four days of viewing data from the current three days of time-shifted viewing metric.