Martini Shot

It's the end of pilot season.  In less than two weeks, the networks announce their picks for the fall 2007 schedule.  The process which began in January with hope and optimism and a sense that the TV business really wasn't in decline, really could pull itself back up, ends in New York, at some huge venue, with the president of each network appearing before a crowd of media buyers at the big ad agencies selling the upcoming fall season.  They call this the "upfronts," because this is when networks try to sell a lot of their ad time upfront, before the shows premiere, before the 80 to 90 percent new show failure rate kicks in...