By Stone Martindale Jun 10, 2008, 14:26 GMT
The Upfronts are annual events where the networks present their seasonal line ups and new fare to advertisers, editors and critics to build sales and buzz for their projects.
ABC, FOX and CBS all finalized their upfront sales yesterday.
Business is up: NBC and CW completed their upfront sales late last week. Among the five networks, the total upfront take is $9.23 billion up 1.2% from last year's total of $9.12 billion.
This final amount also accounts for the $190 million The CW is letting go of as a result of subletting its Sunday night lineup.
Minus The CW, the total among ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC is at $8.85 billion, a 3.5% increase over last year.
Cynopsis broke down the sales by network:
ABC netted $100 million more than last year at $2.5 billion in primetime commitments, which includes primetime sports telecasts. ABC's CPM increase averaged a +9% and the network sold around 3% more inventory this year than last at 80%-85%.
CBS was in lock-step with ABC also scooping up $2.5 billion which is $50 million more than last year. However, this number does not include the NCAA Men's Basketball Championships. CBS also sold 80%-85% of its primetime inventory which is up a few points from 2007 and averaged a +8% CPM increase.
FOX stacked up commitments totaling $1.95 billion which is up a bit over last year and posted CPM increases on average at +9%-10%.
NBC previously reported selling 80% of its inventory totaling $1.9 billion up from $1.8 billion in 2007 at a +5% CPM bump.
The CW wrote $380 million in primetime business which is down from $570 million in 2007, mostly due to the network giving up its Sundays nights to syndicated programming. For its Monday-Friday inventory, The CW averaged a +8% CPM gain.
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