Is this the year the upfront goes down?

I don't cover the network upfront quite as maniacally as some people, but seems it's been a few years since it actually went down. Now Merrill Lynch's Jessica Reif Cohen is saying that her best case scenario is a two percent decline, and her worst-case a drastic 14 percent. Reif Cohen, of course, cites the economy, but also the writers' strike and ratings declines—which have never stopped the upfront from being up in the past. I know there are still a lot of media buyers out there hung up on guaranteeing advertisers a certain number of gross ratings points, but at some point, it's got to be de-emphasized.