It's official -- the upfront ad season falls short of 2004

Tags: Advertising, Marketing

According to today's Wall Street Journal, the official tally on TV upfront sales is in. The call: TV upfront sales fell short of last year, the first time that has happened since 2001. The article lays the blame largely on NBC's results.

Dragging down the market was General Electric's NBC, which is expected to suffer about a 30% drop in so-called upfront commitments for the fall prime-time season. NBC, which has completed 95% of its upfront negotiations, expects to secure $1.9 billion to $2 billion in commitments from advertisers, according to a person familiar with the situation. Last year, NBC landed about $2.9 billion of upfront commitments.

Contributing to NBC's upfront decline was its decision to sell only about 75% of its ad inventory in the upfront season, holding back the rest for sale later in the year. Typically it had sold about 80%. Still, even taking this into account, NBC's upfront decline was worse than predicted on Wall Street. It reflects both NBC's slump in ratings in the past season and advertisers rethinking the amount of money they commit to television.