The shaky economy is likely to damp spending at this year's upfront ad-selling event, according to media buyers and analysts.

Starting this week, broadcast networks will host their annual presentations to advertisers and reveal their fall schedules. (General Electric's NBC unveiled its fall lineup last month but will be staging another advertiser-focused event Monday.) The upfront is of major importance for the networks because they sell about 75% of their ad inventory for the new season.

Media buyers said early reads on marketers' budgets show major ad-spending categories such as automotives, some retail and some financial services are likely to be down. Another sector showing softness, they say, is pharmaceuticals, a major television-ad spender.

Even ad-spending giant Procter & Gamble is considering cutting its overall ad budget by as much as 10% this year, according to two people familiar with the matter. The maker of Tide and Crest has been aggressively moving ad dollars to the Web. "We can't comment on our media buying strategies," said a spokeswoman for P&G.

At last year's upfront, marketers committed an estimated $9.3 billion. This year, in addition to the economy, the networks' task is complicated by fallout from the writers' strike and the lack of blockbuster hits, according to media buyers and some analysts.

"I would not expect money to be up," said John Swift, an executive vice president at PHD, a media-buying firm owned by Omnicom Group. "I expect it to be down."

Unlike past years, all of the major networks at this year's upfront are toning down the glitz, in part because the writers' strike has reduced the number of new shows that the networks have to show off.

Media buyers, who have a vested interest in spinning the market downward, aren't the only ones predicting gloom. One veteran media analyst believes upfront spending will fall between 2% and 14%. "The confluence of ratings declines, economic uncertainty and late development cycle make 2008 the most challenging upfront market of the past decade," wrote Jessica Reif Cohen, an analyst with Merrill Lynch, in a report to investors last week. Ms. Cohen said the broadcast upfront take will "be marginally down in a best-case scenario," and a "material decline is probable."

In response to Ms. Cohen's forecast, one network, ABC, said it is too early to know how much marketers will commit. "Budgets have not yet been registered," said Mike Shaw, head of ad sales at ABC, adding "we believe that ABC is well positioned."

Economic uncertainty is prompting media buyers to ask for more flexibility with their upfront commitments. Several buyers said they are going to ask networks for more cancellation options. Typically, upfront commitments made for the fourth quarter are firm but marketers can cancel up to half of their commitments for the following three quarters.

Mr. Shaw said ABC won't be giving marketers that extra wiggle room.

One bright spot this year seems to be cable TV. Media buyers are eyeing cable programming more closely than ever because the writers' strike has caused the broadcast networks to lose viewers to cable. Buyers said several cable networks have the chance to both raise prices and gain more market share from broadcast competitors.

The muted forecasts come after prices for the so-called scatter market (ad time bought closer to the air date) in the first quarter were up as much as 40% because of the lack of inventory. Some advertisers that were burned by higher scatter prices are likely to shift money into the upfront this year as a way to secure better prices, media buyers say. That isn't likely to be enough to offset the declines in ad spending, they said.

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