Mike Shaw has never been shy about taking a stand—no matter how controversial — when he believes it is in ABC's best interest.

Two years ago, he took a hard line heading into the upfront marketplace in an attempt to get advertisers to pay for time-shifted viewers. The other networks backed off, though, and Shaw was forced to follow that pack and do his upfront deals based on live-only program ratings. Despite being the last of the Big Four networks to do upfront deals in 2006, Shaw's team still took in $2.25 billion in prime-time dollars.

Shaw continued to press his case with the industry this year in aligning himself with the media agencies to negotiate the 2007 upfront based on commercial ratings, in exchange for DVR viewing credit. While rival networks again moved to nail down early 2007 upfront deals at CPMs in the mid-single-digit range, Shaw followed his strategy of waiting out the market and letting others finish first. The end result? ABC took in $2.4 billion in the prime-time upfront, at cost per-thousand increases averaging 9 percent, the highest among the Big Four broadcast networks. Overall, in the 2007 upfront, ABC took in 5 percent more total ad dollars than last year, drawing more dollars into every daypart.

While Shaw has two of the highest-rated prime-time dramas to sell in Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives, his team is poised to take in a windfall of ad dollars in scatter—if the online buzz surveys that are predicting success for the new season's prime-time premieres like Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money turn out to be accurate. Shaw will be glad to remind buyers he's been saying that all along. —John Consoli