• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 30, 2004

At a time when major national marketers are pushing their agencies to rethink their mix and become more "neutral" about the media they buy, some traditional media appear to be growing in influence, not waning. During the first nine months of 2004 national TV outlets including broadcast and cable networks and the major television syndicators all boosted their share of advertising budgets while most other media slipped. The one big exception was the Internet, which grew faster than any other medium and rising to a 5.5 percent share of overall ad spending, according to a MediaDailyNews analysis of data released Monday by TNS Media Intelligence/CMR.

But even with the Internet's gains, much of which came from the explosive growth of paid search advertising, not traditional brand advertising, the national TV outlets still managed to boost national TV's share of ad spending by 1.2 percentage points. While a significant amount of that came from nearly $1 billion in incremental ad spending related to NBC's coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics, it doesn't explain why cable and syndication also increased their shares, or why spot TV actually lost share of market during a super-charged election year.

The election spending, which should become even more pronounced when fourth-quarter data comes available, as well as the Olympics, helps explain the continuing dominance of TV in the media mix, but it doesn't explain why after years of demands for a more neutral approach, marketers are still investing their ad budgets in very traditional ways.

In fact, much of the Internet's paid search growth is either incremental, or is coming out of a medium not even tracked by CMR: yellow pages directories.

The only other medium to actually boost its share of ad budgets during the nine-month period was outdoor, which rose 0.1 points.

Shares of Ad Spending: Jan-Sept. 2004 vs. Jan-Sept 2003

Jan-Sept       Jan-Sept 
                                  2003           2004 
                            Ad $ Share     Ad $ Share    Change 
NEWSPAPERS (LOCAL)               17.9%
17.3%      -0.6 
NETWORK TV                       15.5%          16.1%      +0.6 
CONSUMER MAGAZINES               14.6%          14.5%      -0.1 
SPOT TV                          12.1%
12.0%      -0.1 
CABLE TV                          9.7%          10.2%      +0.5 
INTERNET                          4.8%           5.5%      +0.7 
LOCAL RADIO                       5.8%
5.3%      -0.5 
B-TO-B MAGAZINES                  4.1%           3.8%      -0.3 
SYNDICATION - NATIONAL            2.7%           2.8%      +0.1 
HISPANIC MEDIA                    2.9%
2.8%      -0.1 
NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS               2.4%           2.4%        NC 
OUTDOOR                           2.2%           2.3%      +0.1 
NATIONAL SPOT RADIO               2.0%
1.8%      -0.2 
FSI's                             1.1%           1.0%      -0.1 
SUNDAY MAGAZINES                  1.0%           1.0%        NC 
NETWORK RADIO                     0.8%
0.7%      -0.1 
LOCAL MAGAZINES                   0.3%           0.3%        NC 
TOTAL AD DOLLARS (Millions)  $92,899.9     $102,469.6    +10.3% 

Source: TNS Media Intelligence/CMR