NBC, the last network to complete its upfront negotiations, has taken in $1.8 billion for its primetime inventory — up about 20 percent over last year, with average price increases of 7 percent, individuals familiar with the negotiations told TheWrap.
Adding the NBC total to the other four networks, the broadcast primetime upfront total revenue take will be about $8.8 billion — up about 20 percent over last year.
NBC Universal also completed its cable upfront negotiations, selling about $1.1 in ad inventory for its four major networks USA, Bravo, Oxygen and Syfy, those individuals said.
NBC also sold about $700 million in advertising for its other dayparts — early morning, daytime, evening news and late night — getting premiums for "The Today Show," "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" and "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," each highest-rated in their time periods.
Those shows commanded cost-per-thousand increases in the 9 percent range, individuals familiar with the dealings said.
In primetime, NBC was able to pick up considerably more dollars in the 10 p.m. time period, where it was selling scripted programming for next season, projected to be higher-rated than the ill-fated Jay Leno talk show, which it sold for each weekday night at 10 in last year’s upfront.
On the cable side, USA got the highest price increases, individuals said, based on strong ratings for original scripted programming like "Burn Notice" and "Royal Pains," but all of the cable networks averaged price increases of 9 percent.
Individuals said media buyer demand was strong enough to sell more inventory on the cable side, but NBCU cut off sales, choosing to keep more inventory for the scatter market.
NBC would not comment on the negotiations except for a statement by Michael Pilot, NBCU president of sales and marketing who said, "This was a great upfront for the industry and our results reflected that. We saw market-leading growth for our market leading properties, including cable entertainment, NBC News and late-night programming. Our primetime results saw above-average growth as the market responded to our investment in new programming."
