• by Wayne Friedman , December 20, 2016

November witnessed the lowest increase in digital media spending in the last seven years, contributing to a slight 1% overall ad market decline for the month.

Standard Media Index says digital platforms grew just 3.4% in advertising revenues in November. Social media sites grew 23% -- one of the better performers in the group -- with digital video platforms 15% higher.

The slowdown, says SMI, can be partly attributed to the high double-digit rise in digital media advertising versus November 2015.

November 2016 saw an overall total U.S. ad market 1% decrease, given an extremely strong November 2015 and fewer NFL football games this current period. Looking back to November 2014, the SMI total market for November 2016 was up 21%.

Overall, the TV market was down 2.4% for the month with broadcast losing 10.6%. CBS was down 18%, while NBC lost 5.8%; Fox gave back 14.5%, and ABC sank 7.6%. Taking out NFL, the national TV advertising market was 5.3% higher.

Among the specific broadcast networks, for NFL football ad revenue, NBC was down 17%, while CBS lost 26% and Fox went backwards 34%. Fox had three more games in November 2015 than this year. CBS had eight “Thursday Night Football” games a year ago; this year, just five -- with the other five going to NBC.

Cable networks were up 6.3% -- with Scripps Networks Interactive seeing particularly strong results, gaining 15.1%. Among other notable cable groups/network activity: Viacom gained 10%, this after seven quarter periods of declines; E!, up 24.1%; ESPN was down 8.4%.