The 2012 TV Upfronts

The 2012 TV Upfronts

Each of the seven years that this reporter has covered the upfronts—the weeklong showbiz ritual in which broadcast networks assemble advertisers in Manhattan and take $9 billion from them—has been “a rebuilding year” at NBC. But this was the first time in which NBC’s presentation—a slightly poky dog-and-pony show at Radio City Music Hall on Monday—actually made it possible to believe its corporate-speak. Though NBC is hardly in the best of health, it seems to have cleared some rubble and to be the beneficiary of the goodwill of media buyers (who are eager to see the network not implode) and the non-bad will of journalists (who are in danger of running out of colorful way to disparage NBC and in need of a new angle to work).