The broadcast network upfront ad negotiations are in full gear with all the broadcast networks expected to complete their sales dealings by this weekend.
Assorted persons familiar with the talks are telling TheWrap that ABC could be done as early as Wednesday, CBS by Thursday and NBC by Friday.
ABC would be the third network to complete its upfront selling, joining Fox and The CW. Sources familiar with the situation said ABC has just one major media agency left to finalize business with and it's a big one, conglomerate Group M, which includes agencies MindShare, MEC and MediaCom.
CBS has been doing a brisk business this week and should follow ABC in completing its negotiations, while NBC, sources tell The Wrap, is about two-thirds done with its upfront selling.
Negotiations at ABC were slowed initially by the network trying to garner primetime price hikes above what Fox received (10-11 percent), but in the end, the network will wind up averaging primetime hikes in that same 10-11 percent range that Fox got.
CBS did some early deals in the 13-14 percent price hike range but one large media agency told TheWrap that its deals with CBS averaged 12 percent.
Meanwhile NBC was the last of the five major broadcast networks to begin selling, but is catching up. Again, like ABC, NBC was seeking low double-digit price increases for primetime inventory, but eventually settled for deals averaging in the 9 percent range.
Fox finished its negotiations last week selling about $2.1 billion in primetime ad inventory. The CW officially completed its negotiations on Tuesday, averaging price hikes in the same range as Fox, 10-11 percent, and taking in about $420 million.
Unlike Fox and The CW, which only have 15 and 10 hours respectively of weekly primetime inventory to sell, ABC, CBS and NBC have 22 hours. The Big Three also have to sell inventory in the early morning, daytime, evening news and late night dayparts.
So with more inventory to sell, negotiations take longer.
NBC Universal's cable networks, meanwhile, have all the agency budgets registered and individuals familiar with the situation tell TheWrap that demand for networks like Bravo and USA are strong.
Heading into the upfront, some media buyers were predicting that the NBCU cable networks would get higher price increases than NBC broadcast network. And it seems like things may play out that way.