Upfront

In the North American television industry, an upfront is a group of gatherings hosted at the start of important advertising sales periods by television network executives, attended by the press and major advertisers. It is so named because of its main purpose, to allow marketers to buy television commercial airtime "up front", or several months before the television season begins.

The first upfront presentation was made by ABC in 1962, in an attempt to find out how advertisers felt about the network's new shows.

In the United States, the major broadcast networks' upfronts occur in New York City during the third week of May, the last full week of that month's sweeps period. The networks announce their fall primetime schedules, including tentative launch dates (i.e., fall or midseason) for new television programming, which may be "picked up" the week before. The programming announcements themselves are usually augmented with clips from the new television series, extravagant musical numbers, comedic scenes, and appearances by network stars, and take place at grand venues such as Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, or Carnegie Hall. It is also the time when it is announced (by virtue of not being on the fall schedule) which shows are canceled for the next season. In recent years, the networks have mostly revealed this information to the public a few days before the actual presentation. Most cable networks present earlier in the spring since they usually program for the summer months; press attention to these announcements is usually much lighter.

Up Front (disambiguation)

Up Front is a card-based wargame.

Up Front may also refer to:

Music

Other uses

Up-Front (EP)

Up-Front is a 12-inch, 45 rpm EP by The Fleshtones released in 1980. It was the band's first EP and predates their first album, Roman Gods. The EP featured the "Action Combo," brothers Gordon and Brian Spaeth on saxophones. The record sleeve was designed by lead singer Peter Zaremba.

Track listing

All songs by Peter Zaremba, except as indicated.

Side one

Side two

Personnel

OK

"OK" (/oʊkeɪ/; also spelled "okay", "ok", or "O.K.") is a word denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, or acknowledgment. "OK", as an adjective, can also express acknowledgment without approval. "OK" has frequently turned up as a loanword in many other languages.

As an adjective, "OK" means "adequate", "acceptable" ("this is OK to send out"), "mediocre" often in contrast to "good" ("the food was OK"); it also functions as an adverb in this sense. As an interjection, it can denote compliance ("OK, I will do that"), or agreement ("OK, that is fine"). As a verb and noun it means "assent" ("the boss OKed the purchase" and "the boss gave his OK to the purchase"). As a versatile discourse marker (or back-channeling item), it can also be used with appropriate voice tone to show doubt or to seek confirmation ("OK?" or "Is that OK?").

Proposed etymologies

Numerous explanations for the origin of the expression have been suggested, but few have been discussed seriously by linguists. The following proposals have found mainstream recognition.

Orenstein & Koppel

Orenstein & Koppel (normally abbreviated to "O&K") was a major German engineering company specialising in railway vehicles, escalators, and heavy equipment. It was founded on April 1, 1876 in Berlin by Benno Orenstein and Arthur Koppel.

Originally a general engineering company, O&K soon started to specialise in the manufacture of railway vehicles. The company also manufactured heavy equipment and escalators. O&K pulled out of the railway business in 1981. Its escalator-manufacturing division was spun off to the company's majority shareholder at the time, Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, in 1996, leaving the company to focus primarily on construction machines. The construction-equipment business was sold to New Holland Construction, at the time part of the Fiat Group, in 1999.

Founding and railway work

The Orenstein & Koppel Company was a mechanical-engineering firm that first entered the railway-construction field, building locomotives and other railroad cars.

First founded in 1892 in Schlachtensee, in the Zehlendorf district of Berlin, and known as the Märkische Lokomotivfabrik, the O&K factories expanded to supply the Imperial German Army under Kaiser Wilhelm II with field-service locomotives, or Feldbahn. O&K supplied all manner of railway equipment to the Army. Because of strained capacity at the Schlachtensee shops, work transferred in 1899 to a site in Nowawes, later Babelsberg, near Potsdam. Around 1908, O&K acquired the firm of Gerlach and König in Nordhausen, building petrol and diesel locomotives there under the trade mark "Montania".

Omar Khadr

Omar Ahmed Algredr Khadr (born September 19, 1986) is a Canadian who was convicted of murder after he allegedly threw a grenade during an armed conflict in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of an American soldier. At the time, he was 15 years old and had been brought to Afghanistan by his father, who was affiliated with an extreme religious group. During the conflict Khadr was badly wounded, and captured by the Americans. He was subsequently held at Guantanamo Bay for 10 years. After extensive torture, he pleaded guilty to murder in October 2010 to several purported war crimes prior to being tried by a United States military commission. He was the youngest prisoner and last Western citizen to be held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. He accepted an eight-year sentence, not including time served, with the possibility of a transfer to Canada after at least one year to serve the remainder of the sentence.

During a firefight on July 27, 2002, in the village of Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan, in which several Taliban fighters were killed, Khadr, not yet 16, was severely wounded. After being detained at Bagram, he was sent to Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. During his detention, he was interrogated by Canadian as well as US intelligence officers.