Laura Nathanson, executive vice president of national sales for the ABC TV Network, has overall responsibility for the unit, which is headed by Bill Bund. The first ABC Unlimited deal was with EAS Corp. and cut across 13 properties. Other networks and media giants have their own versions of ABC Unlimited. And some of them have landed big clients. Viacom Plus, for example, sealed a deal with DaimlerChrysler.
Details are scant about the deal under discussion.
A number of media agencies and networks, especially cable networks, have already begun to talk to each other about the upfront as the annual mating ritual begins. At a panel discussion at the annual media conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies in March, executives from some of the world's biggest media agencies said cross-platform deals might make up as much as 40 percent of marketers' spending by 2006.