A weak TV upfront ad market is not worrying TV network executives. Speaking at the Nomura Digital Media Conference in New York, media selling executives said a weak-performing upfront TV ad market — where broadcast networks witnessed nearly an 8% reduction in advertising dollars to $8.45 billion, and where cable networks dipped almost 5% to $9.68 billion — is not a concern.
TV’s advertising scatter market — to many still an all-important predicator of how the summer upfront marketplace will perform — has been showing recent modest price gains for top TV networks versus earlier quarterly periods.
