In TV dealmaking season, business may be slow

By Paul Thomasch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Television is recovering from one labor strike and could face another, it's contending with digital video records, competing with new media, and trying to lock up advertising dollars in a rotten economy.

Next week, against this backdrop, CBS Corp's CBS, Walt Disney Co's ABC and New Corp's Fox will present their 2008-09 prime-time schedules and sell advertising for the season. General Electric Co's NBC introduced its schedule early, but will host an event.

The TV industry's troubles could mean a big slowdown to the deal-making that follows the schedule presentations, a stretch known as the "upfronts" when about $9 billion of commercial inventory has sold in recent years.

"A lot of corporations have not yet determined what the budgets are going to be that they put into the upfront marketplace," said Aaron Cohen, director of broadcast for media agency Horizon Media.

He said worries about the economy -- not to mention a possible actors strike -- could result in a noticeable amount of foot-dragging once negotiations start. Prices could also be hurt, possibly knocking $500 million off total sales, he said.

"This may well be one of the more elongated marketplaces: The shortest time frame has been three days, last year it took about a week, and I believe it will go a lot longer this year," Cohen added.

One certainty is this upfront week will be more bare-bones than those of the past, when networks would trot out stars like Jerry Seinfeld or Katie Couric and throw lavish cocktail parties at popular New York spots.

Network executives have repeatedly promised this year will be different, lower key and less expensive, a refrain that began when screenwriters picketed major TV and movie studios. In February, the two sides reached a deal to end the 14-week strike.

The Screen Actors Guild and studios, meanwhile, remain at odds over a contract for 120,000 film and TV actors to replace the one that expires June 30, raising fears of another possible Hollywood strike.

PRICES TO FOLLOW RATINGS, ECONOMY?

One result of last winter's screenwriters' strike was a shorter development season, so TV networks reduced the number of pilots they ordered to save time and money.

CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves recently said many of the network's new shows were made as presentations rather than pilots, which are the first full episode of a program.

Presentations, Moonves said, could be shot in five or six days rather than 10 or 12 for pilots, cost 50 percent less, and contain only what would be the key scenes of the story lines.

"To say we've saved tens of millions of dollars in development costs would be an accurate statement," he said.

Ad executives expressed only slight concern over signing TV commercial deals without seeing a full pilot.