TV Ad Spending Slips In September; Overall Media Spend Higher

Total TV advertising spending pulled back in September versus the previous month -- with overall media spending up modestly.

Overall media spending for the month grew 4%, with digital media rising, part of a long series of double-digit percentage levels, 17%, according to Standard Media Index. Big digital media gainers here were pure-play social media, up a big 72%; pure-play video gaining 32%.

Another big category improver: All TV network based digital advertising -- up 16%.

But other linear TV ad revenues pulled back somewhat -- 1% -- against soaring gains in August, largely due to the Olympics. For September, national broadcast was down 6%, with national cable networks inching up 1%.

The best news for TV networks was with national TV scatter advertising deals -- up a strong 29% versus the same month the year before.

But scatter couldn’t deliver overall positive results to the networks, due to declining upfront advertising deals for the month -- set in the weak June/July 2015 market -- which was down 9%. Upfront TV deals for TV networks can represent 60% to 75% of their overall national media spending.

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Local TV/cable advertising rocketed up 24% amid the environment of heavy political advertising. National spot TV and national syndication were flat.

Magazines were down 13%, with newspapers losing 28% and radio slipping 2%. In contrast, out-of-home advertising grew 10%.

Standard Media Index data comes from actual spending by media agencies representing approximately 80% of all U.S. agency spend.

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