Ad spending across the major U.S. media fell at its steepest rate since the industry's last recession in 2001, according to new data released on Wednesday by ad-tracking service TNS Media Intelligence. Spending across the media tracked by TNS MI fell 3.7% during the second quarter of 2008, reflecting the worsening of the U.S. economy, and a slackening of demand from major marketers for most major media. Combined with lackluster first quarter results, first half ad spending declined 1.6%.
Using the term "collateral damage" to describe the impact the economy has been having on U.S. ad spending, TNS MI Senior Vice President-Research Jon Swallen noted, "Advertising expenditures started to contract in March, well before the September turbulence on Wall Street renewed concerns about the health of the economy."
According to TNS MI's tracking, every one of the 19 major media it measures posted weaker year-over-year performance in the second quarter as compared to the first three months of 2008. While quarterly details were not released, TNS MI found that Internet display advertising continued to increase its share and absolute growth during the first half, rising 8.0% over the first half of 2007. That finding comes in contrast to estimates released last week by Nielsen Monitor-Plus, which had online display advertising declining 6% during the first half due to fallout in the financial services ad category.
Interestingly, TNS MI has financial services ad spending relatively stable through the first half, declining only a smidgen to $4.499 billion. The most significant category decline during the first half was automotive, which declined 11.2% to $6.478 billion, with the preponderance coming from imports (down 16.9%) vs. domestic (-6.3%) automakers.
FIRST HALF 2008 AD SPENDING: PERCENT CHANGE VS. FIRST HALF 2007
Television Media: -0.4%
Magazine Media: -1.8%
– Consumer Magazines: -1.8%
– B-to-B Magazines: -5.9%
– Sunday Magazines: +4.8%
– Local Magazines: -2.8%
– Spanish Language Magazines: +7.1%
Newspaper Media: -7.4%
– Local Newspapers: -7.1%
– National Newspapers: -9.5%
– Spanish Language Newspapers: -11.0%
Internet: +8.0%
Radio Media: -6.5%
Outdoor: +1.8%
FSIs: +2.0%
TOTAL: -1.6%