NEW YORK -- By this time each year, the kids upfront ad market is usually all wrapped up. This year it hasn't even started yet. Explanations for the delay vary widely.
Network sales people and media buyers said the biggest reason for the lateness for the kids market is that the added competition for kids' eyeballs -- Fox Family Channel is adding 77 hours of children's programming that wasn't there before -- has turned this year's upfront into a buyers market.
"What will move a market is somebody's fear that they won't be able to get the inventory that they need," said a top kids network sales exec. "With all the players coming in, they're more comfortable that they can buy what they need. So, they sit back and say 'Why do we need to go so early?' "
In the last few years, the kids upfront has taken place a few days after the Super Bowl in late January. Going into this year's upfront, most industry observers thought the market would move by the end of the Toy Fair, which ends in New York Friday.
When money does begin to flow in the kids upfront, the market moves in a whirl and usually is done the day it begins. For this reason, the head sales person for one kids network took a fresh change of clothes to the office, and that was three weeks ago.
Gary Carr, senior VP, group director, national broadcast & programming, said the lateness of the upfront harkens back to the early 1990s when the kids marketplace happened in March or April.
"Markets are influenced by one of two factors," said Carr. "It's either when advertisers, out of panic, decide to rush en masse into a marketplace, or the sellers' side makes it real attractive for us to jump in. Neither has happened."
Like all markets, TV sales are always driven by supply and demand. This year the market has the perception that the supply of children's programming has increased while the demand -- the amount of money advertisers plan to spend in aggregate -- has remained roughly flat from last year.
Fox Family's entrance into the market -- the Family Channel will relaunch as Fox Family Channel on Aug. 15 -- means that advertisers now have six major kids outlets: Nickelodeon, Fox Family, Fox Children's Network, the WB, Cartoon Network and ABC. In addition, UPN and CBS also run kids' programming.
"Whatever dollar growth there was, Nick has gobbled up all of it," Carr said.
Because Nickelodeon signed two-year deals with its advertisers last year, the Viacom-owned network will, for the most part, sit out this year's upfront. However, Nick has some additional primetime inventory to sell, and its sales staff will try to get its advertisers to extend the two-year deals by another year.
With 56% of the total kids gross ratings points, Nick is the dominant kidvid network.
However, because cable networks traditionally command lower prices (measured in cost per thousands or CPMs) Nickelodeon's CPM are still less than its broadcast network competitors. John Popkowski, head of ad sales for MTV Networks, argued that there's no logical reason that broadcast networks should get higher CPMs than Nick.
Nick has grown on the broadcasters. Seven years ago, Nick sold at only $1 per thousand viewers and now it averages in the neighborhood of $8, Popkowski said. ABC, which only programs to kids on Saturday morning, sells for $15. Popkowski suggested that broadcast CPMs could fall this year.
"The cabal on the buy side will try to roll Fox and ABC's prices back," Popkowski said.
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