From MarketingCharts.org

Ad Spending Climbs 5.1%; TV Gains 10.5%

U.S. ad spending saw some significant increases in the first quarter, with Q1 spending hikes “broadly distributed” across advertisers and categories, according to Kantar Media.

“That’s an encouraging signal for the market going forward,” says Jon Swallen, svp of research at Kantar.

Overall, ad expenditures rose 5.1% in Q110 from a year ago, to $31.3 billion.

Of the 19 media types tracked by Kantar, 13 experienced a spending increase in the first quarter.

Spending by Media

TV
Overall, TV gained 10.5%:
—Spot TV surged 22% due to a torrent of additional money from the automotive, retail, financial services and political categories. Despite the growth, spot TV has still only recovered to a level last seen in 1997.
—Network TV jumped 11.6%, due to a boost from Winter Olympics.
—Cable TV was up 8.2%
—Spanish language TV was up 7.2%
—Syndication was down 13.2%

Radio
Radio was up 7.4% overall:
—National spot radio soared 19%, with help from increased spending in telecom, financial services and auto categories
—Local radio was up 4.6%
—Network radio was up 3%

The Radio Advertising Bureau’s figures on radio growth were slightly less optimistic. The RAB reported earlier this week that radio advertising was up 6% in the first quarter.

Print
Print media lagged the overall ad market. Magazines were down 3.2% and newspapers slipped 3.7%:
—Consumer magazine spending fell 3.9%
—B-to-b magazines dropped 8.4%
—Local newspapers slipped 5.6%
—Sunday magazine spending jumped 13.7%
—National newspapers managed to gain 9.1%, primarily from increases at the Wall Street Journal.

Internet, Outdoor and FSIs

Internet (display ads only) gained 5%, while outdoor was essentially flat, down 0.4%. FSIs jumped 12.8%.

Full story here

 

From Editor and Publisher and MediaPost

Newspapers First Ad Rep Firm To Close
Erik Sass

Newspapers First, one of the leading national advertising sales rep firms, is going out of business June 4, according to Editor & Publisher. The demise of Newspapers First is a sign that despite signs of a broader economic turnaround and some glimmers of hope at big newspaper publishers, the newspaper business is still in dire straits.

The firm represents newspapers with a total audience of 21 million during the week and 29 million on Sundays, covering the top 125 DMAs, including The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Miami Herald, Detroit Free Press & News, Cincinnati Enquirer, Houston Chronicle, Phoenix Republic, and Denver Post.

Newspapers First offered advertisers customized, geotargeted campaigns, taking advantage of just-in-time delivery to execute ad placements in contextually relevant editorial environments. It specialized in targeting lifestyle segments and niche demographics, as well as database marketing, product sampling and online advertising. (NF reached an aggregate Web audience generating more than 1 billion page views per month.)

Created by a consortium of newspaper publishers, which came together to combine their national sales forces over a number of decades, Newspapers First can be viewed as a bellwether for falling national print ad demand.

Last July, the company downsized its staff by almost half, according to E&P. CEO Bob Termotto said the decision to close the company was prompted by the adverse business environment, adding that the newspaper business "needs a new direction," especially in "how they're going to handle national advertising."

According to the Newspaper Association of America, total national advertising spending has plunged 46% from a peak of $8.1 billion in 2004 to just $4.4 billion in 2009. The last ad spending forecasts from Magna have total newspaper ad revenues continuing to decline through 2015.

Click to read this article on the MediaPostPublications.com website.

From MiN

Ad Pages Get Crushed, Down 25.6% in 2009
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Steve Smith

Bottom line? It really was as bad as it felt, but things may be bottoming. According to Publisher Information Bureau year-end counts, ad pages for the magazine industry were off 25.6% compared to 2008. That reflected a revenue drop of 18.1% as measured by rate cards. There were some signs of relief in the last quarter of the year when the ad page drop eased to a still-painful 21.6%.

It wasn’t all gloomy. As we have been reporting all year, not only were there titles that weathered the storm well, especially in the service content sector, but the food and food products ad segment actually spent 21.9% more in Q4 than in the same period in 2008 and on 9.8% more pages. Food was the only one of a dozen categories to show positive growth throughout the year. Nevertheless, in the fourth quarter of the year, some other segments showed a slowdown in the rate of decline. Household cleaners, pet foods and supplies, drugs, toiletries and fitness products all registered shallower drops from previous quarters this year, PIB reports. Of course, the comps are favorable for Q4 because by the end of 2008 many marketers had already started cutting budgets radically.

Among the magazines that did increase their ad pages substantially in 2009, People Style Watch was up 24.4%, OK Weekly +20.7%, Saveur +12.6%, Family Circle +11.5% and Scholastic Parent and Child +9.6%.

This from Media Industry Newsletter and Marketing Charts:

Consumer magazines saw ad pages dip another 20.1% in October, for a total decline of 22% through the first 10 months of the 2009, according to the Media Industry Newsletter (MIN). For October, Architectural Digest took the biggest hit, while Interview saw the largest increase in ad pages.

Ad pages were down in every category and at nearly every major title, writes MediaBuyerPlanner:

• 131 of the 155 monthlies tracked by MIN saw ad pages slip in October.
• 111 of them saw ad pages fall more than 10%.
• 76 saw ad pages fall more than 20%.
• 42 saw ad pages slide more than 30%.
• 22 saw ad pages plunge more than 40%.

The titles that took biggest hits:

• Architectural Digest (down 49.4%)
• Veranda (-47.4%)
• W (-45.5%)
• Town & Country (-45.2%)
• Conde Nast Traveler (-45.1%)
• Dwell (-45%), Wired (-43.2%)
• Gourmet (-42.7%)
• Ebony (-40.1%)
• National Geographic Traveler (-45.2%)

The magazines seeing the most improvement:

• Interview (up 49.3%)
• People StyleWatch (+23.7%)
• Texas Monthly (+21.9%)
• All You (+20.5%)
• Southern Living (+12.4%)
• Family Circle (+13.9%)
• Fitness (+11.7%)
• Flex (+8.8%)
• Saveur (+8.3%)
• Muscle & Fitness (+6.9%)

October pulled the year-to-date average up slightly, from 23.6% year-to-date through September to 22% year-to-date through October.

Full Story from Marketing Charts here

"For the second quarter of 2009, total newspaper ad sales fell 29% to $6.8 billion, down from $9.6 billion last year, according to Q2 figures released by the Newspaper Association of America. 

As  evidence of the continued toll the recession is taking on the industry, online ad sales were significantly affected again this quarter, slipping 16% to $653 million. Online newspaper advertising declined 1.8% in all of 2008, but tumbled more than 13% in Q109.

Print Takes Hardest Hit

Total print advertising totaled $6.2 billion, a decline of 30% over the same period last year. Within the print category, national ads fell nearly 30%, while retail ads fell nearly 25%.

Classifieds ads took the biggest hit within the print category, falling a total of 40%. Job recruitment classifed ads declined 66%, the worst slide of any classified category. Automotive classifieds fell 43%, while real estate classifieds fell 46% for the quarter, the NAA said.

Newspaper ad losses have grown worse in each of the last 12 quarters, experiencing the worst declines in newspaper history, reports Media Buyer Planner.

For the first half, ad revenue fell 29%, to $13.4 billion. Ad revenue fell 28% in the first quarter.

The numbers, give perspective to what John Sturm, chief executive of the association, calls “a terrible stretch of bad road,” writes Mediaweek."

Pepsi and CBS have created a new print advertising format (video!) to be showcased in Entertainment Weekly. Click here for the full story: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=138546