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BIG star revelations, 10-minute pilot clips and all-star pageantry.

That’s so last year.

Television’s springtime advertising drive, the week in which the broadcast networks announce their fall prime-time schedules in the hopes of persuading advertisers to spend billions of dollars on commercial spots, is here. But this year, television stars who get trotted out with their shiny new shows at the “upfronts,” as this ritual is known, will be sharing the spotlight with the digital revolution.

It’s the beginning of TV’s geeks-and-gadgets era. As ad buyers sit back to be charmed and wooed by executives and familiar faces from each network (count on Patrick Dempsey of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and Wentworth Miller from Fox’s “Prison Break”) at landmark venues, such as Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden, they will be besieged with messages of promotional opportunities that extend beyond the TV screen.

They also will have one less network on which to spend their advertising dollars, as the CW is launched on Thursday, replacing UPN and the WB, and more advance notice than ever before about some of the shows being picked up.

One thing is for certain: No matter how festive and fun, beneath the smiles and claims of being No. 1, it’s all about the bottom line.