• by Wayne Friedman , December 18, 2009

The advertising hits just keep on coming for TV stations, networks and programmers -- and not in a good way.

Overall, broadcast television ad revenues were down 22.6% to $8.8 billion in the third quarter, versus the same time period a year ago, according to the Television Bureau of Advertising.

Local TV stations slipped 28.1% to $3.1 billion, with network TV off 21.5% to $4.7 billion. The best news came with syndicated TV, which dropped a modest 7.2% to $1.0 billion.

The period was particularly rough compared to the broader nine-month period in 2009 to date, per TVB. Over this period, network TV dropped 10.7%, syndicated TV was off 2.8%, and local broadcast TV plummeted 27.4%. This brings an overall nine-month loss for broadcast TV to 15.7%, at $28.9 billion.

The big three categories continue to show declines in the third quarter: automotive, down 49.8%; communications/telecommunications, off 22.3%; and restaurants, cutting back 14.8%.

Other major categories went in the same direction: Car and truck dealers declined 32.6%; furniture stores pulled back 19.8%; insurance marketers were down 21.0%; schools, colleges and camps shrank 11.0%; and food and food products were off 7.0%.

Only three of TV's top 25 ad categories showed gains in local broadcast. This group included legal services advertisers -- the 10th-biggest local TV advertiser -- up 3.3%. Supermarkets and other food stores improved 3.7%, and household products such as soaps and cleaners were up 6.4%.

Political advertising, in 19th place, lost 83.9% to $28.4 billion during the period.