That’s the scenario Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente sketches out in a new note. He figures that Apple could certainly come up with a cool piece of hardware — he imagines one that looks like a “large-scale iPad” — that would tie together the Internet with Apple’s existing suite of iOS apps and services.

But DiClemente doesn’t think Cook will be able to break open the traditional cable TV bundle. Which means that if you watch TV on Apple TV, it’s going to look a lot like the TV you’re already watching now. And it will cost the same to get that stuff to your set.

DiClemente is a media analyst, not a hardware guy, and his report focuses primarily on the reasons it will be so hard for Apple — or anyone — to truly disrupt the TV programming/distribution business. But here’s some of his speculation about the box, which is similar to other industry guesses:

• He doesn’t think it’s coming in 2012.
• He thinks it will use Apple’s Siri voice control as a “groundbreaking interface.”
• He imagines it could sell for $1,500.
• He thinks it could be “so much more than a TV — including gaming, video communication, content delivery, apps, computing and all the capabilities of the current Apple TV.”

All good, so far. But again, the problem will be when it comes to the TV programming part.

DiClemente argues, convincingly, that TV programmers don’t have any incentive to stop selling the bundles they’re already selling for big dollars (in seven- and 10-year deals).

The “affiliate fees” that cable providers pay for the bundles are now up to $30 billion a year, or about $30 per subscriber per month. And programmers aren’t going to do anything that weakens that revenue stream.

So whether Apple ends up working with the cable providers like Comcast and strikes deals that use Apple TVs in lieu of a cable box, or whether Apple works with the cable programmers like Viacom and uses Apple TVs for a cable-free “over the top” service, the result would be the same: Consumers would have to pay a big monthly fee for a big package of TV channels, most of which they wouldn’t use.

Impossible to say, though the company that’s likely at the top of the short list is Google.

With $44.63 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet as of Dec. 31, the search behemoth is the most cash-rich tech company among the big dividend holdouts. In fact, it’s now the only tech company with a market cap above $100 billion that doesn’t offer a dividend.

And while Google hasn’t even hinted at offering a dividend anytime soon, some analysts believe the company is the most likely among its peers to consider one.

“We found that Google has the greatest capacity to return cash,” said Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente.

Why?

“It probably has the most to gain in terms of positive sentiment by doing so, given its propensity for acquisitions and mixed investor sentiment around the Motorola Mobility deal.”

That’s certainly true. But there’s a problem with that view: Google is about to spend $12.5 billion of its cash stash on that Motorola Mobility deal. Now, Motorola Mobility had about $3.5 billion in its own coffers as of December 2011, with an estimated $3.2 billion of it on shore, but it’s unclear whether Google will combine the balance sheets of the two companies. Remember, the deal has yet to be consummated.

And then there’s that $4 billion in debt Google is carrying.

And a host of potentially expensive patent-related actions orbiting Android.

Add to that the fact that a big chunk of Google’s cash is held in overseas accounts and can’t be brought home without a massive tax hit and the company seems a far less likely dividend candidate that it does at first glance.

“With the completion of the Motorola Mobility deal, Google would have only around $3.5 billion in net U.S. cash/investments,” said S&P Capital IQ analyst Scott Kessler. “We think CEO Larry Page has reasons to practically and philosophically favor other uses of capital, and do not see a dividend anytime soon.”

The Barclays analyst now thinks Amazon moved five million units in the last few months of 2011. That’s down from his earlier estimate of 5.5 million, which was up from an even earlier estimate of 4.5 million.

Of course, Amazon could clear all this up by simply telling investors how many devices it sells. But if you held your breath waiting for that to happen, you would need really, really strong lungs.

If you like tracking analyst prognostications, you should also note that DiClemente has lowered his 2012 Kindle Fire and e-reader estimates, in part because he now thinks Amazon may not release new models until the second half of the year.

The Barclays analyst has bumped up his sales estimates for the low-end tablet: He now thinks Jeff Bezos sold 5.5 million units last quarter, up from his earlier guess of 4.5 million.

DiClemente figures Amazon will now sell 18.4 million Kindle Fires this year, which would give it nearly half of the non-iPad tablet market.

It’s always important to remember that, unlike Apple, which sells media and apps via iTunes to help support its devices sales, Amazon is approaching this from the opposite direction: It wants people to buy its devices so they’ll be more likely to buy other stuff.

DiClemente takes a stab at this one, too: He figures that by 2014, the Kindle Fire and its descendants will be generating an additional $3.9 billion a year from incremental e-commerce spending, driven by customers who pick up the company’s Prime shipping program along with their tablet.

And he thinks that, during that same year, revenue from tablet content will eclipse tablet revenue, period: He figures devices will generate $3.9 billion, and content will be worth some $5.2 billion.

Back to present tense: Has anyone seen a Kindle Fire in the wild? I haven’t, and my thoroughly unscientific spot check of my pals and peers hasn’t turned one up, either. Of course, I also recall when seeing a Kindle e-reader on the subway — many months after the e-reader’s launch — was enough to warrant a blog post.

That number is in line with some of DiClemente’s peers, but it’s still notable for two reasons:

• If it’s true, it means the video site’s revenue has now synced up with the price Google paid for it five years ago.
• Much more important, by DiClemente’s estimate, it means YouTube commands a staggering 80 percent of Web video revenues — he figures the whole market is worth $2 billion.

It’s possible that DiClemente’s numbers are a bit off. Hulu has said it will do more than $500 million in 2011, with the majority of that coming from advertising. So if both of those numbers are accurate it would mean that there was essentially no other video ad spending anywhere in the world in 2011, which seems like a bit of a stretch.

[UPDATE: Barclays analyst Perry Gold clarifies that the $1.6 billion YouTube estimate is a global number, but the $2 billion figure is its estimate for the U.S. market video market. Gold suggests that the global video market may be $2.5 billion to $3 billion, which would make the math a little easier to digest. But the other wildcard here, as some readers have noted, is that YouTube's revenues come from both video ads and display advertising, which means we're not comparing apples to apples.]

Still, point taken: YouTube is finally a big business that makes serious money. Perhaps it’s even profitable!

And if that’s the case, why is it pressing ahead with this Hollywood/“channels” strategy?

The big idea behind that one, after all, is to create stuff that advertisers will be happy to pay a premium for. But if YouTube is already generating $1.6 billion a year for non-premium stuff, why bother?

One possible answer: The channel strategy is a big focus for YouTube, but it doesn’t mean the site is abandoning what’s already working.

And while people who type stuff like to mention the $100 million YouTube is investing in the project (guilty!), bear in mind that the number is almost meaningless to Google. In fact, Google has already spent close to double that in the first nine months of this year — $173 million — on “content acquisition costs … primarily related to content displayed on YouTube,” and I’m reasonably sure that number doesn’t include the channel deals, most of which were only recently finalized.

So while the channels plan may augur Google’s intention to “take on TV” and “disrupt cable” and other storm-the-barricades metaphors, right now it’s just a toe-touch for YouTube head Salar Kamangar and his team. Turns out that what they’re already doing could be working just fine.

2011 isn’t 2008, yet. So Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente doesn’t think the ad business is going to get hammered — he just thinks it’s going to grow less. The exception here is very old print media, like magazines, newspapers and direct mail, in part because of pressure from daily-deal guys like Groupon and Living Social.

Note that Time Warner has already said it has seen weakness at Time Inc. during Q3, and I’ve heard the same from other publishers, as well.

And as with the last go-round, DiClemente (and others) argue that Web advertising will fare best if we really do go into a double dip.

It’s the same argument, too: Ad dollars still haven’t completely followed consumers into the Web, so there’s plenty of growth left, especially when it comes to video, etc. And Web advertising is more efficient than offline, so in a cash crunch, advertisers will have more incentive to use it, etc.

Which may all be true (I hope it is, given where you’re reading this). But also note that both AOL and Yahoo have made noises about softness in display ads this summer. Then again, both of those companies have plenty of their own problems.

The deal is more or less a replica of the pact CBS and Netflix struck in February: Access to relatively recent CBS shows that aren’t on the air anymore, like “Medium,” as well as library titles the network owns that aired elsewhere, like “Frasier” and “Cheers.” But no “in-season” episodes of anything.

CBS and Amazon aren’t talking about money, but Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente pegged the value of the CBS/Netflix deal at $200 million over two years. It’s reasonable to assume that Amazon is paying the same rate for its shows, but spending less over all. That’s because the total value of the deal is likely based on Amazon’s subscriber base, which is much lower than Netflix’s.

UPDATE: Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker pegs the deal at “over $100 million,” over an 18-month term.

Amazon says the new titles will bring its streaming library up to 8,000 titles; Netflix boasts around 20,000 titles for its digital-only library. For now, Amazon’s Web video titles are free to customers who use its “Prime” delivery service, but industry observers assume that library access will also be a big part of the new iPad-like tablet the company is expected to unveil this fall.

Meanwhile, the deal underscores the best-case digital scenario for big media players like CBS — the company gets to take old shows and resell them multiple times (and maybe more, as Microsoft, Apple, and others eye the market), and doesn’t have to worry about cannibalization.

Things get much trickier when consumers decide they want to watch current programming, though. That stuff continues to be worth much more to studios and networks when it runs on broadcast or cable TV, but convincing viewers to play along is getting increasingly difficult.

Reed Hastings’ company says it’s a cost issue. If people are going to use both his DVD-by-mail service and his Web video streaming service, he’ll need more money to support both businesses. That’s probably true.

Here’s what’s more true: Reed Hastings doesn’t want most of his customers to pay more. He wants them to pay less, and drop DVDs in favor of a streaming-only service.

To recap: Yesterday, Hastings kept the price of his streaming-only video service at $8 a month. But he raised the price of his companion DVD-by-mail service from $2 a month to $8 month, which will push many subscribers’ monthly fees from $10 a month to $16 a month.

Unless they stop using DVDs. Which seems to be what Netflix wants. Even though they haven’t said so out loud, to date.

Still, the message seems to have gotten through to Wall Street. The move is designed to “further drive streaming-only plans and adoption,” says Barclays’ Anthony DiClemente. Same sentiment, with more flourish, from BTIG’s Rich Greenfield: The price hike “is aimed at killing off the DVD business as fast as possible,” he says.

It is also resonating in Hollywood. A studio boss I talked to yesterday says Hastings instituted the price hike “because people aren’t moving to streaming fast enough. He’s trying to force them to go faster.”

The problem, as every disgruntled Netflix subscriber on the Web can tell you, is that Netflix streaming and Netflix DVD are two different beasts: Netflix on the Web gives you instant gratification, but has less than 20 percent of the content that Netflix DVD-by-mail options give you.

The reason Hastings can offer a much bigger DVD catalog is because he doesn’t have to get permission from Hollywood to rent out its discs — he just needs to buy them. But every movie he streams is licensed from the studios, at a cost that’s only going to get higher.

And while Hastings never has to worry about getting “The Social Network” on disc, streaming deals give Sony the ability to cut off his digital access completely. As has already happened, at least temporarily.

So doesn’t upping the number of streaming subscribers give the studios more leverage?

In the near-term, yes. But Hastings seems to be betting that the studios will continue to give him digital access, as long as he keeps writing them checks, no matter how much they posture.

And every digital deal — and every digital customer — he accumulates gives him that much more bargaining power.

Netflix has lots of potential competitors, but the only service that’s really offering something competitive at the moment is Hulu with its Hulu Plus subscription offering, and that’s on track to accumulate something like a million subscribers this year. Netflix was 24 million last quarter, and will likely report a couple million more during its earnings call this month.

Meanwhile, if Hastings really does convince subscribers to abandon DVDs altogether, he can drop his costs significantly. I’ve been paying for, but not using, his DVD service for the last year. But the fact that I might drop a disc in the mail and ask for another one means Hastings has to keep an expensive infrastructure up and running.

Of course, none of this means anything if Netflix subscribers stop using the service altogether.  Which is the impression you’ll get if you scan the wave of angry commentary on Twitter and the Web (I contributed some mild-mannered grousing myself).

Except that Twitter and the Web are pretty much designed for angry commentary. And measuring discontent via the number of Facebook complaints doesn’t really make a lot of sense, unless those complaints get up into really, really big numbers.

Remember that Netflix is already used to fairly high churn rates of about 4 percent, which means that about a million of its 24 million existing subscribers are going to go anyway. And bear in mind that Netflix takes enormous pride in the data it collects on its users’ behavior. I’d be very surprised if they haven’t modeled a scenario where thousands of people complain about the service change on the Web.

Postscript: Then again, maybe Netflix didn’t model quite as closely as they could have. The company, famed for its excellent customer service, seems unable to handle the volume of calls the price hike has generated. Here, via Greenfield, is the message you’re most likely to get when you call Netflix today.

It’s also possible that there was some great stuff there that I missed; my efforts to liveblog today’s call were marred by technical snafus and operator (i.e., me) error.

Still. some nuggets:

• Murdoch reaffirmed his company’s interest in overhauling MySpace, even though its Google (GOOG)  deal is about to expire, and even though the unit it is still losing money as ad revenue and search dollars dwindle. “We will see it out for some time yet”, he says.
• Mobile, though, is another story. News Corp. took a $217 million charge on its outdoor and mobile businesses, and Carey confirmed an open secret — the company is trying to sell its Jamba unit.
• Murdoch continues to love the iPad. He thinks the Apple  (AAPL) device will be joined by others and that worldwide we’ll see “hundreds and hundreds of millions” of these things in use. Like other content-makers, he thinks it’s “gamechanger” for his business.
• Murdoch didn’t have a lot to say about his efforts to command users to pay for his stuff online. Asked specifically about Hulu and other video options (News Corp. is a co-investor in the site), he was mum. But Carey made noises about making sure News Corp. didn’t give away valuable content online. So draw your own conclusions there.
• He says a boycott of Glenn Beck’s Fox News show has had zero impact on the show’s revenue: “They don’t boycott watching it. We’re getting incredible numbers”.
• And the big news. Fox is “very close” to announcing new judges for “American Idol.” And next year’s show will be an upgrade, Murdoch said. “It will be better. The music will certainly be better.”

——————

EARLIER:

How did News Corp. do in its most recent quarter? Good question! The company is reporting earnings of 33 cents a share, and the street was looking for 20 cents.

Good, right? But that 33 cents number includes a bunch of one time gains, which are only partly offset by one-time charges. And if the company has explained exactly how much impaact those charges had on profits, I’ve yet to see it. UPDATE: The adjusted number is 30 cents — but that also includes 12 cents of “non-cash tax benefits related to recognition of certain prior year tax credits”. So make of that what you will.

That said, we can say with authority that the company recorded revenue of $8.1 billion, which is in line with the consensus. I’ll obviously update the EPS number when I can.

Barclays media analyst Anthony DiClemente provided us with nice overview of revenue and operating earnings expectations, so if you’re so inclined, you can see how News Corp. (which owns this Web site) matched up on a unit-by-unit basis.

As always, the real fun begins when Rupert Murdoch gets on the speakerphone for the earnings call, because Murdoch more or less says what’s on his mind, which means he tends to generate actual news. And even when he’s on script, the output can be interesting. Last quarter, for instance, he announced that News Corp. would be announcing a new digital news subscription service within a few weeks. Haven’t heard about it (on the record) since, but I’m sure someone will ask today.

LIVEBLOG:

But the deal could also give Les Moonves and company the ability to strike less conventional distribution deals, too. Now that Comcast is out of the way, CBS could move forward with a Hulu deal, and perhaps the likes of an Apple TV product as well.

Make no mistake: The real focus of today’s deal is the money Comcast will fork over for the right to distribute CBS’ broadcast programming to its cable subscribers’ TV sets. Comcast and other cable guys have resisted paying the so-called retransmission fee for TV that’s available free over the airwaves. But one by one, they’re conceding and paying up, which means their customers will, too.

Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente guesses Comcast’s CBS fee will start at 50 cents a month per subscriber and move well past $1 by the end of the deal, though I’ve heard grunts and murmurs from Black Rock that those numbers are low. Perhaps we’ll hear more during tomorrow’s earnings call.

And while the release announcing the deal notes that Comcast (CMCSA) gets online rights as part of the pact, the near-term impact for Web viewers will be very limited.

Specifically, if you’re a Comcast cable subscriber who pays for Showtime and/or The Movie Channel, you’ll soon be able to watch programming from those channels online, too. Good news for “Weeds” and “Dexter” fans, but that’s about it.

That said, down the road, CBS may start moving to a model where it pulls more of its broadcast TV shows like “CSI” off of the free Web and makes them available only to “authenticated” customers–Comcast subscribers and anyone else whose pipe provider has a deal with the broadcaster.

And that, in turn, gives the network the go-ahead to move forward with Hulu, Apple and every other player who also wants to sell online access to TV programming.

CBS had previously chatted with other outlets like Apple and Hulu–in part because it was interested, and in part because it was good for Comcast to know that it was interested. But now it has a framework for those deals: Comcast is paying us this much money for this much access to our shows. You’ll need to pay that amount or more.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise to see Moonves acknowledge his interest today in joining Hulu’s paid subscription service, which would mean patching things up with former online rivals News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, Disney’s (DIS) ABC and GE’s (GE) NBC.

And I wouldn’t be shocked to see him murmur positive things about supplying online programming to Apple (AAPL), or Google (GOOG) for that matter, during tomorrow’s call. Stay tuned.

That’s the takeaway from a note by Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente, who has knocked down his ad estimates for 2010. It’s the most modest of reductions–he’s now predicting five percent growth for U.S. ad spending, instead of 5.5 percent–but it’s a contrast to most other ad predictors, who have been revising their forecasts upward for some time.

If you spend most of your time watching Web publishers and TV networks, you might not see it: Everyone from Google (GOOG) to GE’s (GE) NBC Universal have been reporting very good growth numbers. So what gives?

Everything that isn’t on the Web or on your TV screen, DiClemente says. The radio, magazine and newspaper businesses have been reporting lousy results this year, and that’s enough to drag down the rest of the business (click images to enlarge):

We’ll get more info about the state of the ad market next week, when a swath of big media companies, including CBS (CBS), News Corp. (NWS), Time Warner (TWX) and AOL (AOL) turn in their Q2 report cards. But even if you assume that those guys report healthy-looking numbers, it’s important to remember that they are based on very weak comps from the previous year. Which means that industries that are still posting declines are really, really, down. DiClemente spells it out in this chart:

Useful, sobering numbers. We’ll refer back to them next week.

DiClemente was arguing that the bundled approach to cable TV–whereby subscribers get dozens or even hundreds of channels for one big fee, no matter how many networks they actually watch–wasn’t going anywhere for quite some time. If ever.

But if you’re the kind of person who thinks we’re headed for an a la carte model in which programmers compete directly for consumer dollars, you can use this as fodder for your argument. Because you can see just how much you’re paying for stuff you don’t want.

Take a look (click to enlarge–or drag the whole image off of the browser and onto your desktop if you want a better view):

Obviously these are wholesale prices, not retail. But this gives you a very good idea of where the money goes–to a lot of channels you likely never, ever, look at.

You’ll find this particularly upsetting if you don’t watch sports. Because sports channels account for about 40 percent of cable fees.

And you’ll also be upset once you realize that the broadcast networks–GE’s (GE) NBC, News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, Disney’s (DIS) ABC and CBS (CBS)–are going to get added to this list over the next year or so. Even though anyone who doesn’t pay for cable gets them for free.

Hence, last winter’s Fox vs. Time Warner Cable (TWC) standoff, and the Disney vs. Cablevision (CVC) fight that ended in time for the Oscars last night.

As I’ve said before, I think that many cable viewers are probably okay with most of the bundle–or at least unwilling to foot the bill for real a la carte pricing. But maybe if you waved this list in front of them, they might rethink that.

Gillespie’s old unit, the CBS Interactive News Group, has been folded into a group with the company’s “business brands,” including BNET and MoneyWatch. Greg Mason, who was running the business group, now oversees the whole thing.

This one is literally old news, since it was announced internally all the way back on Jan. 26. But as you may recall, tech and business outlets were under a government mandate that week not to write about anything that wasn’t related to what we then called the Apple (AAPL) tablet. (Remember those days?)

The move would be bigger news if it augured a bigger shake-up at CBS’s digital side, especially since CBS Interactive head Quincy Smith has finally left the company to open up his own M&A shop. But CBS spokeswoman Sarah Cain says that’s not the case.

In a few hours, we’ll get a better sense of how CNET has performed for CBS (CBS) since the company acquired it in a $1.8 billion deal in 2008. CBS is set to announce Q4 earnings shortly, and estimates range widely depending on which analyst you listen to. Anthony DiClemente of Barclays Capital, for instance, thinks Interactive revenue will increase 10 percent, while the unit’s earnings will decrease by 8.8 percent; the consensus calls for an increase of 31 percent and a 36.2 percent drop respectively.

Meanwhile, for completists: Here’s Interactive boss Neil Ashe’s announcement explaining Gillespie’s move and the subsequent changes.

From: Neil Ashe
To: CBSi-ALL
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 1:15 PM
Subject: Tech, News & Business Announcement

Team:

We begin 2010 in an exciting position. Our brands are growing, and we continue to attract huge audiences and many of the world’s largest advertisers. As we look to the future, our focus remains on creating great content and experiences for our users, and great marketing solutions for our customers.

To that end, we are making changes today that streamline our division by bringing two business units into one. Tech & News and Business will now operate as a single business unit led by Greg Mason. Dave Morris will directly manage the sales organization for this new business unit while remaining in his role as Chief Client Officer for CBS Interactive. Joe Gillespie will work closely with me, Greg and Dave on making this transition a success. He’ll be with us until the end of March, at which time he has decided to leave the company to pursue new opportunities and his other interests, including a new appointment to the board of Jinni.com.

The creation of this new business unit will let us capitalize on the combined power of some of our biggest and most influential brands including CNET, CBSNews.com, CBS MoneyWatch, BNET, ZDNet and TechRepublic. It will also allow us to create better alignment between properties like CBS MoneyWatch and CBSNews.com where there are natural synergies between the content and audiences. This is good for CBS Interactive, as well as CBS as a whole.

For our marketing partners, this change helps simplify how clients work with us.  Individually, each business unit has seen great success cross-pollinating content and selling programs. Combined, we have the ability to do even more of these types of programs, but even faster and on a much larger scale. Dave will work closely with the sales team to create programs that take advantage of the combined power of these leading brands.  And of course, Dave will continue to be our primary representative in the marketplace for CBS Interactive as a whole.

Those of you that have worked with Greg know that he has an incredible track record of building and operating world-class brands, and repeatedly transforming businesses into success stories. He joined CNET Networks in 2000 and was instrumental in rebuilding our business after the bubble burst. He helped lead the charge to launch the Messaging Plus ad units in 2001, which put CNET Networks on the map in terms of industry leadership and innovation. From 2004-2007 Greg led CNET Content Solutions, which he transformed into one of our fastest growing and most consistently profitable businesses. Since 2007, Greg has been at the helm of our business portfolio, during which time he has launched two important new brands–BNET and CBS MoneyWatch, as well as led the continued success of our storied IT brands–ZDNet and TechRepublic.

Greg’s unique ability to manage large businesses, as well as infuse them with his entrepreneurial spirit will serve this new team well as we build upon our success and look to the future.

During his 6 years at CNET Networks and CBS Interactive, Joe has been a driving force in the continued success of CNET.  Under his leadership, CNET is recognized today as the #1 tech media brand in the world, and CBSNews.com became a site worthy of the legacy of CBS News. In 2008, Joe architected the complete relaunch of CNET, which has resulted in record traffic growth ever since. The site recently eclipsed 100 million users for 3 consecutive months (an all-time record). Early on, Joe initiated the use of video across the site, taking CNET beyond just product reviews and making it the definitive resource for people who love technology and want to get the most out of it. This vision also included broadening the coverage model with new content additions like Car Tech and Crave.

At CBSNews.com, Joe led a major site redesign, which has reinvigorated the site, driving growth and attracting new advertisers with a renewed focus on photos and original content. Since its debut in mid-June, unique users are up 22%, page views are up 12% and video streams are up 28%. Joe and his team were also instrumental in helping Katie Couric launch her online presence, executing her Campaign and Inauguration webcasts, and most recently the @KatieCouric webcast.

In addition to being a good friend, Joe has been an invaluable member of my management team and I want to thank him for all his contributions over the years. Please join me in wishing him all the best in his new endeavors.

I’m excited about the possibilities this new business unit creates for us. We’ve got great leaders in Greg and Dave, and world class brands with exciting opportunities in front of them. I know that this new, combined team will achieve great success and I look forward to a prosperous 2010 with the entire CBS Interactive team.

Best, NA

Still, if you’re among those who, say, make their living working for an ad-supported media outlet, it sure is nice to see this sort of thing: Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente jacking up his 2010 U.S. ad market estimates from no growth to a 3.5 percent bump.

That’s a reflection of an “incrementally buoyant picture,” DiClemente says in perfect Wall Street deadpan. Why the muted optimism? “We believe corporate America must and will return to market its products and services.”

Interestingly, DiClemente sees the largest increase coming not from Web advertising, but traditional TV ads, pushed up in part because of the Winter Olympics and next fall’s election season. Last week’s Supreme Court decision didn’t hurt either.

That helps explain why DiClemente has also raised his price targets for Viacom (VIA) and News Corp. (NWS) (which owns this Web site). Click on the table below to see a full breakdown of his predictions:

Granted, “not horrible” doesn’t equal “good times are here again.” But I keep hearing that the sickening decline in advertising spending has stopped, at least, and that some marketers are actually spending money again.

Here are a couple more bits of anecdotal evidence:

The newest Advertiser Optimism Reports conducted by Advertiser Perceptions Inc., show that ad buyers are slightly more optimistic than they were a few months ago. MediaPost:

“The most recent survey suggests that the degree of ad budget pessimism may have bottomed out, or at the very least, is leveling off. The average for all media shows that 29% or ad executives expect to increase and 29% expect to decrease their ad spending over the next six months. That’s a marginal improvement from two months ago, when only 26% planned to boost their budgets, while 30% planned to cut them.”

And from Wall Street, a little more cautious optimism: Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente has upgraded his outlook and/or his price targets on a swath of entertainment stocks–Time Warner (TWX), News Corp. (NWS), Scripps Network Interactive (SNI), Viacom (VIA) and CBS (CBS).

That’s in part because DiClemente also thinks advertising–or at least TV advertising–has bottomed out. He now thinks broadcast TV ad dollars will increase by four percent in 2010, up from a previous estimate of minus-one percent, and that cable TV will increase 5.5 percent, up from two percent.

It’s easy enough to be skeptical of this stuff, especially any happy talk about TV, given that we’re now in the “upfront” season when network executives do their best to convince buyers that sales are hotter than ever. But wouldn’t it be nice if they were right?

[Image credit: Iragerich]

That’s the prediction from Barclays Capital’s Anthony DiClemente, who says that a combination of factors–first and foremost, a lousy economy–will force the networks to sell less advertising, at lower prices, than they have for quite some time. Translation: DiClemente sees a 15 percent drop in upfront sales this year–the first double-digit drop for the networks since 2002.

CBS (CBS) will be in the least vulnerable position since it has the strongest ratings, DiClemente says, and will see revenue drop 10 percent. But GE’s (GE) NBC, the ratings laggard, will see dollars drop by nearly 20 percent; the fact that it’s stripping out five hours of network programming and replacing it with Jay Leno (who will presumably be OK after his hospitalization) doesn’t help. Here’s his network-by-network breakdown (click table to enlarge):

One impact for Web video sites like Hulu, the joint venture between NBC, News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, and very soon, Disney’s (DIS) ABC: DiClemente figures that the networks will start throwing in Web ads as sweeteners for broadcast buys, which should push down ad rates for Web video in general.

The “buy”-a-“real”-ad-get-a-Web-ad-for-free sales pitch is one that media conglomerates have been moving away from in recent years, but all bets are off right now. Big Media will sacrifice Web pricing in order to shore up offline sales, which are still much more important.

The good news: The upfronts are increasingly less important to the networks’ health and even less so for their corporate parents (click table to enlarge):

And if you’re a very optimistic network executive, you can hold out hope that the economy rebounds later on this year and the ads you didn’t sell this spring become much more valuable in the fall. Could happen, right?

Now the layoffs are here: ABC is firing 200 people and leaving another 200 positions vacant, which amounts to an overall workforce reduction of five percent. Meanwhile cable powerhouse ESPN is cutting 200 jobs of its own.

There’s little detail about who was cut where, though I think I should be able run down one detail fairly soon; in the meantime if you want to offer up more info I’m happy to collect it. You can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com. If you want to be completely anonymous, which is understandable, but less useful to me (I won’t have any way of reaching you for follow-up) you can use the blind tip box here.

We’ve already heard worrisome predictions about online ad sales at Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL. And those are going to be rosy compared to the people who sell offline. Bad harbinger: Brutal numbers from magazine publisher Meredith Corp (MDP).

The Iowa-based company reported that its print ad revenue was down 20 percent for the last quarter, and that the handful TV stations it owns saw their sales drop about five percent. Meredith says magazine ads are down 15 percent so far for the current quarter, which sounds comparatively rosy (down 15 percent is the new up!).

But the company says TV ads have fallen off a cliff and are plummeting out of view: Sales for the current quarter are down 40 percent, led by auto ads, which have basically disappeared–down a staggering 70 percent.

If those numbers are anything close to indicative of the rest of the market, you’re going to see the ripple effects throughout the media world. Today, for instance, Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente used the Meredith results to help explain why he was cutting his estimates for News Corp. (NWS), owner of Dow Jones and of this Web site.

And things can get much worse, DiClemente notes. The national market for TV ads has stayed relatively strong, but that’s in large part because advertisers locked in their buys last spring. But advertisers still have a window to bail out of those commitments in the near future. And even if they don’t, it’s hard to imagine they’ll re-up at the same levels when the networks pitch them this spring.

The short story: The lousy ad market will be even worse than people think.

The longer story: Pali Research’s Rich Greenfield has chopped his estimates for News Corp. (owner of Dow Jones, which owns this site). He expects operating income for the company’s fiscal 2009 (which wraps up this summer) to be down 22 percent; he’d previously pegged the number at -18 percent.

Dragging down the business: The company’s international newspaper and domestic TV operations; he thinks their operating income will drop a staggering 39.6 percent and 60.4 percent, respectively.

And Barclays Capital’s Anthony DiClemente takes a similar whack at Viacom: He had previously forecast that Viacom’s operating income would drop by 1.9 percent in 2009; now he figures the decline will be eight percent.

DiClemente predicts that advertising at Viacom’s cable networks, which power the majority of the company’s financials, will drop seven percent in the coming year. That’s worse than the three percent drop he thinks that cable TV in general will see, in large part because MTV’s target audience has been disappearing as of late.

Check out the following chart from Barclays, which tracks ratings for the core demographics at Viacom’s biggest cable channels (click to enlarge):

Notice that MTV’s 23.9 percent decline has happened amidst tons of press for its reality shows, notably “The Hills,” which is supposedly a sensation among the kids these days (that’s some of the cast, at the top of this post). (UPDATE: An earlier version of this post reproduced inaccurate data that Barclays sent out regarding Viacom’s Noggin channel; Viacom points out that the channel registered a 64 percent increase in its core demo from the fall of 2007 through the fall of 2008).

Meanwhile, did you know that MTV has followed up “A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila,” a reality show/dating game hosted by a bikini-wearing bisexual pin-up girl, with “A Double Shot At Love,” which is…well, you can probably guess.

If you need it spelled out, here’s a promo clip:

So says Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente, who probably isn’t going out on a limb here. Yesterday’s cuts from Viacom (VIA) and GE’s (GE) NBC–850 and 500 jobs, respectively–are actually “small in aggregate,” he argues. So who’s next?

Pretty much anyone that hasn’t made significant cuts will have to do so soon, DiClemente says. He singles out Disney (DIS), and specifically “its underperforming divisions, including the ABC Network” as a logical candidate. But DiClemente doesn’t get any more specific about the number of people he thinks Disney will or should fire, other than noting it has a lot of workers (see Barclays chart below; click to enlarge). I’ve asked him for additional color and have asked Disney for comment, as well; not holding my breath, though.