• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 6, 2006

The U.S. advertising economy is losing some steam, according to a leading ad monitoring service used by Madison Avenue. Ad spending across the media it measures rose only 2.9 percent during the second quarter of 2006, a pronounced drop from the 5.3 percent rate of growth during an Olympics-fueled first quarter, TNS Media Intelligence reported Wednesday morning.

Factoring out the incremental impact of special advertising events such as the Olympics and the World Cup soccer tournament, overall ad spending growth has been tracking in the 2 percent to 4 percent range, said Steven Fredericks, president-CEO of TNS MI. Including those special events, total ad spending across the media TNS tracks totaled $73.0 billion, a 4.1 percent gain over the first half of 2005.

Another special event - 2006 political year spending - should help bolster the third and fourth quarters and total year estimates, Fredericks predicted.

The results are consistent with the downward revisions of some other recent ad forecasts, but are more dour than estimates released last week by Nielsen Monitor-Plus, which said U.S. ad spending rose 5.1 percent during the first half. TNS MI and Monitor-Plus typically produced slightly different estimates because their methods are somewhat different. One thing they both agree on, is where the biggest growth is coming from: Spanish-language TV.

According to TNS MI, advertisers invested $2.4 billion on U.S. Spanish-language media outlets during the first half, marking a 20.5 percent gain over the same period in 2005. Much of that growth came from World Cup soccer coverage in the month of June.

Thanks in large part to the role of Hispanic TV networks, television's share of the U.S. advertising pie is actually growing, not shrinking as many Internet pundits suggest. TV's share of measured media ad spending rose nearly a point to 44.3 percent during the first half of 2006, up from 43.7 percent during the same period in 2005.

   Share of Advertising Spending by Media

                         Jan-June    Jan-June

MEDIA TYPE                  2006        2005
TELEVISION                 44.3%       43.7%
MAGAZINES                  19.6%       19.6%
NEWSPAPERS                 18.6%       19.9%
RADIO                       7.2%        7.6%
INTERNET                    6.4%        5.6%  ALL
OTHER                   3.8%        3.5%  Source: TNS Media Intelligence

That share gain came without much help from the major broadcast networks, which grew only 5.7 percent during the first half despite the presence of the Winter Olympics Games coverage on NBC. Excluding the impact of Olympic spending, TNS MI estimated that network TV ad spending was up only 1.2 percent during the half.

But the medium demonstrating the greatest share gains, and one that appears to be completely organic, is online. While TNS MI measures only online display advertising, excluding fast-growing categories such as paid search, it estimated that the Internet's share of measured U.S. ad spending rose to 6.4 percent during the half, up from 5.6 percent a year earlier. Internet display advertising rose 18.9 percent to $4.7 billion, according to TNS MI.

Most other media were either flat, or declined in terms of ad budget shares, with the exception of "other media" including out-of-home (see related story in today's MediaDailyNews).

                              Jan-June 2006 
Jan-June 2005

MEDIA                           
(Millions)     (Millions)    % CHANGE  NETWORK
TV                       $12,277.3     
$11,614.0         5.7%  NEWSPAPERS (LOCAL)              
$11,645.2      $12,120.2        -3.9%  CONSUMER
MAGAZINES               $10,902.5      $10,446.8         4.4%
CABLE TV                         
$8,142.1       $7,935.8         2.6%  SPOT TV
                       $7,691.8      
$7,339.3         4.8%  INTERNET
                       $4,692.0      
$3,947.3        18.9%  LOCAL RADIO                      
$3,554.3       $3,607.3        -1.5%  SPANISH LANGUAGE MEDIA           
$2,400.8       $1,992.1        20.5%  B-TO-B
MAGAZINES                  $2,181.9      
$2,207.0        -1.1%  SYNDICATION - NATIONAL            $2,109.1      
$1,994.6         5.7%
OUTDOOR                          
$1,832.7       $1,693.9         8.2%  NATIONAL
NEWSPAPERS               $1,766.4       $1,668.5        
5.9%  NATIONAL SPOT RADIO               $1,226.0      
$1,243.3        -1.4%  FSI's
                         
$954.3         $788.9        21.0%  SUNDAY
MAGAZINES                    $891.0        
$805.4        10.6%  NETWORK
RADIO                       $484.1        
$486.9        -0.6%  LOCAL MAGAZINES                    
$226.3         $204.6        10.6%  TOTAL   
                        $72,977.9     
$70,096.0         4.1%  Source: TNS Media Intelligence