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While the major TV networks are still gearing up for the spring ad-sales market, Madison Avenue is already predicting the smallest gain in ad rates since the downturn.
Ad buyers, speaking at a conference in Manhattan yesterday, tempered expectations for “upfront” pricing this year as the big broadcast networks struggle with sharp ratings declines.
Chris Geraci, national broadcast chief at media-buying shop OMD, said there would be “close to no inflation,” with rates rising just 3 percent to 6 percent.
Last year, the big broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — secured price increases between 5 percent and 9 percent, which is tepid compared with the double-digit gains CBS chief Les Moonves usually predicts around this time of year. This year he has made no such forecast. (News Corp. owns Fox and The Post.)
Even after the downturn in 2008, fourth-place NBC managed to eke out a price increase of 5 percent in the 2010 upfront market.
Starcom President Amanda Richman also predicted weak demand ahead of the broadcast pitches that kick off in mid-May.
“Demand isn’t what it was last year, as advertisers turn to new sources of video supply,” she said at a MediaPost conference.
Indeed, a number of alternative online video outlets including Yahoo, Vevo and Microsoft are hoping to steal ad dollars from the TV market at their own upfront pitches, the New Fronts, that start on Monday.
Even if demand is level with last year, ad inventory will be constrained with most of the networks showing declines in so-called C3 ratings, which include three days of DVR playback, that are used to negotiate commercial time.
Of course some network execs on the other side of the bargaining table think ad buyers are posturing.
“Demand should be good — autos are back, telecos are rebounding,” Univision sales chief Steve Mandala told The Post. “The question is what is the supply side?”