TV ad spending down 9%
Feb-25-2010

In the wake of a tough advertising market, only three of 19 media categories made meaningful gains in 2009 versus the year before: Cable television, Spanish-language cable TV and free-standing insert coupons.

Those were the few bright spots from a Nielsen Co. report on U.S. ad spending, in which overall revenues sank 9%, or $11.6 billion to $117 billion last year.

Nielsen says this continues the trend of six straight quarters of declining ad revenues. In the first six months of 2009, Nielsen says the U.S. advertising market shrank 15.4%; in the first nine months of 2009, it pulled back by 11.5%.

Bigger media businesses cable television grew 14.8% and free-standing-insert coupons climbed 11.5% in 2009 versus 2008. The small advertising business of Spanish-language cable TV soared a massive 32.2%.

Nielsen pegged the Internet advertising business -- which came in fourth place after FSI coupons -- as virtually the same as a year ago -- a tiny growth of 0.1%.

Sixteen other ad categories showed declines -- many with big double-digit percent drops.

Spot TV in the top 100 markets sank 16.1%; local newspapers were off 10.4%; national magazines, down 19.3%; and outdoor dropped 11.2%.

Some of the better losers: national Sunday supplements off 7.2%, network radio down 9.7% and network TV, a 9.9% pullback.

Nielsen said African-American TV, which is a subset of network, cable and syndication, climbed 13.8% year-over-year.

Year-to-Year Change in Ad Spend, by Media

source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art;_aid=123131&nid;=111531

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