Upfront Ad Sales: CBS Leads in Gains and Revenue

FOX and NBC were the last to report their upfront ad sales, this week, and it looks like CBS is poised to lead the pack.

CBS' total upfront ad sales were roughly $2.7 billion dollars with 78% of ad time sold. They were generating increase between 8.5% and 9.5%. Exactly how much inventory was sold is not known.

ABC comes in second place with about $2.4 billion and only getting increases of between 6% and 7%.

FOX pulled in $1.95 billion in upfront sales, selling 80% of its inventory. Like CBS, FOX was getting between 8% to 9% in increases. Not bad considering they do not program near as many hours as ABC, CBS and NBC.

NBC is feeling the pain of its horrible ratings. It only sold $1.8 billion in inventory with increases at about 6%. When you consider they high premium prices for SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL, there was not much ad buying for their programming on the other six nights of the week..

As usual, THE CW was way back in 5th place. It sold a little over $400 million in ad inventory, but did manage to get increases better than NBC, at around 6.5% to 7.5%.