Twenty stories below David Levy's aerie in the south tower of the Time Warner Center, the systolic whoosh of traffic that pulses around Columbus Circle has begun to clot, as drivers slow to take in the spectacle shaping up inside the rotary's perimeter. On this Wednesday afternoon in early September, the NFL is planning a rock 'n' roll pep rally of sorts, in honor of the next day's season opener at Giants Stadium (Sept. 4).

It's the kind of intrusion that drives the city's more peevish citizens half-crazy. Rather than staging the kickoff concert a mile north, on the expanse of the Great Lawn, the NFL is allowed to proceed with its midtown takeover, effectively shutting down three major surface streets for 24 hours. "It's going to be a nuthouse down there," Levy grins, gesturing to the stage.

If nothing else, the NFL's brash intrusion into the Manhattan grid functions as a tidy metaphor for how Levy approached this year's upfront marketplace. In order to best position Turner's cable channels as viable alternatives to pricey and underperforming broadcast programming, Levy slotted the company's upfront presentation to run during the same week as the network gatherings. Taking the stage in the midst of the broadcast roundabout, Levy and Turner programming chief Steve Koonin made a case that was ultimately as successful as it was succinct.

"It was really a revolutionary year in that we were able to cross that boundary," Levy says. "Throughout the last couple years, we saw money shifting from broadcast to cable, but we really didn't get the true 'broadcast replacement' dollars like we did this year."

As broadcasters struggled through the one-two punch of a scarcity of new programming and a concurrent ratings drop-off, Levy knew the time was right for a proactive strike. "It's a mathematical equation," he says. "The opportunity was there because of a continuing decrease in broadcast ratings and the shrinking of the capacity of [gross ratings points] in the marketplace, thanks to C3. Add to that a strong scatter market that was 20 percent to 40 percent above upfront pricing, and that put us in an enviable position."

It was Koonin who delivered the eureka moment. Singling out NBC for its lineup of shows featuring "men in unitards" (American Gladiators) and "a talking car" (Knight Rider), the president of Turner Entertainment Networks noted that TNT boasts the acting chops of Academy Award winners Holly Hunter and Timothy Hutton.

"For the first time, there was a tangible belief in the marketplace that broadcast is vulnerable," Koonin says. "During the strike we kept hearing the broadcasters whining about how the model suddenly isn't working for them, so it became clear that it was time to go for the throat."

Once negotiations began in earnest, Levy was able to funnel a wealth of business away from the networks, including fast food and packaged goods. That influx of cash, and broadcast replacement dollars, helped Turner secure its most lucrative upfront to date, as Levy's team nailed down average CPM increases of 10 percent in prime, while boosting volume by around 20 percent.

Ratings juggernauts like TNT's The Closer and Saving Grace sold well as broadcast replacement properties, as did the recently launched Steven Bochco legal drama Raising the Bar. At TBS, House of Payne and The Bill Engvall Show were also popular among clients looking for options as broadcast GRPs withered. "Even the programs that maybe aren't doing the highest ratings, like My Boys, are getting quality CPMs, because of the product integration opportunities that are available," Levy says.

Broadcast replacement generally earned positive reviews in the upfront, although some media buyers say that there are limitations to what the strategy can deliver. (And for the record, the broadcast nets still hit their numbers in the upfront.) Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer for GroupM, who last year ranked No. 1 on the Mediaweek 50, says that he was able to "use it a little for certain clients," before adding that the related inventory tends to skew rather high. "A lot of the programs you're looking for as broadcast replacement are already priced higher than the network shows."

As Levy was setting the pace of the cable upfront, he was also plotting a break from third-party ad networks. In June, Turner began developing an in-house system, packaging inventory across nearly 20 sites, ranging from proprietary brands like CNN.com and CartoonNetwork.com to such partner sites as NBA.com and Nascar.com.

"Aggregate the traffic and you're looking at 50 million uniques and 3.5 billion impressions," Levy says. "Now I can sell you men 18-34 across all these brands...and I'll tell you exactly what sites you're on and what brands you may be attached to."

Although he can't predict how the marketplace will shake out in 2009, Levy plans to duplicate the broadcast bum-rush. "I gotta watch the economy, for sure. But I can say that in challenging times, people are going to go with what they know best. And that's television."

Chairman and CEO Phil Kent says Levy is an adherent of the [Ted] Turner Doctrine. "David has an iron gut," Kent says. "He won't hesitate to leave a lot of money on the table if he doesn't like the terms. And he'll say, 'We've worked way too hard to compromise our principles.'" -Anthony Crupi