• by Wayne Friedman , October 15, 2013

Global advertising spending continues to improve -- slightly.

Advertising spending gained 3.5% in the second quarter of this year, while the six-month trend for this year -- January to June -- grew 2.8% over the same period the year before, according to Nielsen.

The best-performing region continued to be Latin America, up by 13.1% for the first six months of the year. Other regions that outperformed the worldwide market growth rate were Asia-Pacific, 6.4% higher and the Middle East & Africa, 3.9% more.

Those that came in below the global ad market overall were North America, up 2.7%, slightly below the six-month growth rate; and Europe, still struggling, down 6% from a year before.

Looking at individual countries, Nielsen says Argentina contributed big gains for the Latin America region. Indonesia, China and the Philippines all had double-digit ad growth in the Asia-Pacific region. In Europe, the only countries witnessing improvements were Norway (2.5% higher); Switzerland (a 0.6% gain); and Greece (up 7.4%).

Analyzing specific media, for the first six months of the year TV was 4.2% higher, still commanding the largest media share with 57.6%; the Internet is 26.6% higher, now at a 4.3% media share; and outdoor advertising gained 5.0% to a 3.5% share.

On the losing end: newspapers are down 2%, now with a 18.9% market share, second place to TV; magazines were off 1.9%, for a 10% market share; radio slipped a bit, down 0.9% to a 5.4% market share; and cinema advertising sank 5.9%, at a 0.3% market share.

Gold globe photo from Shutterstock