Fox, CW sell commercial time at higher prices

With hot shows including “Glee” and “The Vampire Diaries,” and hopes for a moderately stronger economy, Fox Broadcasting and the CW were able to wring more out of advertisers for the 2010-11 television season.

Both Fox and CW said Friday that they had wrapped up their “upfront” sales, when the TV networks sell the bulk of their ad time for the new season. Fox is expected to pull in about $1.9 billion from advertisers; the smaller CW sold about $380 million in commercial time.

Fox won rate increases of 9% over last year’s upfront prices, while the CW was able to raise rates about 7.5%, according to people familiar with the matter.

The other major broadcasters — CBS, ABC and NBC — were still negotiating with advertisers Friday as buyers balked at paying the rates that the networks were initially seeking. Fox appears to have set the ceiling for rate hikes, making it difficult for the other networks to raise their prices above the 9% increase that Fox gained for most of its prime-time commercials.

The CW, a joint venture of CBS Corp. and Warner Bros., said it did well among automakers this season. That category had pulled back spending last year during the peak of the recession.

“As the youngest-skewing network with a full schedule of original programming for the first time, we’ve seen tremendous year-to-year growth in all key [advertising] categories, including health and beauty, retail, wireless [phone carriers] and autos, both domestic and foreign,” Rob Tuck, the CW’s executive vice president for national sales, said in a statement.

The new CW show that advertisers are lining up for is “Nikita,” the latest adaptation of “La Femme Nikita,” a film that has spawned several theatrical and TV remakes.

One coup for CW was to persuade advertisers to pay the same ad rates for the commercials that run within episodes that are streamed online as they do for commercials that air on television. “The vast majority of our clients have bought both on-air time and the full episode streaming online,” Tuck said in an interview.

“The business has recognized the changes in viewers’ behavior,” he said. “Our younger viewers don’t see a difference in watching a show on the television screen or watching it on their computer screen. And during this upfront market, the advertisers agreed that there wasn’t really a difference either.”

Typically, networks sell about 80% of their commercial inventory before the TV season starts. The rest is held back for what is known in the industry as the “scatter” market. Ads are sold during the upfront market with a ratings guarantee, and if a network does not deliver the audience promised, advertisers get extra commercials known as “make-goods” to make up for the ratings shortfall.

meg.james@latimes.com