Analyst Tries To Make Sense of Tepid Upfront

The upfront market can be confusing, full of off-the-record commentary, some of which is designed to strengthen a buyer’s or seller’s hand as negotiations continue. Some Wall Street analysts put very little stock in trying to generate hard numbers about the upfront, figuring that the quarterly ad sales numbers reported by the media companies is what really counts in the end.

In a new report, Vijay Jayant of Evercore ISI tries to put numbers to the upfront, which is probably more than halfway finished. He figures that when all is said and done, broadcast volume will be down 3 percent to $8.6 billion with a price increase on a CPM (cost per thousand viewers) basis of 1.9 percent, down from 2014’s 4.5 percent price hike. He expects the broadcasters to sell 69 percent of their inventory upfront, compared to 73 percent a year ago. For cable, he sees volume down 2.4 percent to $10.4 billion, with CPM increases of 2.9 percent compared to 5.1 percent in 2014. He sees cable networks selling 49 percent of their inventory, down from 51 percent a year ago.