• by Wayne Friedman , September 19, 2008

In the first half of the year, cable networks and syndicated TV advertising were the two media bright spots in a period that saw U.S. advertising sink 1.4% overall, according to Nielsen Monitor Plus.

Most of the U.S. ad problems came from weakening local newspapers and business-to-business magazines, slammed by reduced automotive spending.

Cable witnessed a healthy 8.1% gain as the best-performing category, with syndicated TV right behind at 7.2%. Cable TV and syndicated TV may have had an extra boost during the first half of the year, as a writers' strike mostly affected broadcast network TV programming.

Other categories in the plus column for the first six months of the year include national newspaper Sunday supplements (a 7.2% hike); Spanish-language TV (4.5%); FSI coupons (2.9%); spot television in markets 101 to 200 (2.9%); spot television in the top 100 markets (2.6%); network radio (2.1%); outdoor (1.1%); and local magazine (0.3%).

On the down side, local newspapers lost ground--down 7.3%, with B2B magazines down 8%.

Nielsen says the Internet lost 6% this period, versus the same in 2007, due mostly to a major drop in financial-services advertising in the category, which sank 27% during the period.

The research company notes that these Internet totals are only for CPM-based, image-based advertising; they don't include paid search or online video advertising, two major components. When adding that back in, the Nielsen Online report, in a separate release, said the entire Internet was up 11%.

Image-based categories that showed gains on the Net include the entertainment industry, up 47%; automotive, with a 45% climb; and consumer-marketing goods advertising, with a 32% improvement.

Overall advertising trends by category continue to offer weak results. The biggest ad category--automotive--was down 8% to $5.3 billion; pharmaceuticals were 4.8% lower at $2.6 billion; movie advertising was down 4.7% to $1.7 billion; and auto dealership advertising was off 0.62% to $2.2 billion.

Of the top 10 categories, direct-response advertising showed the biggest gain, at 20.4% to $1.37 billion; credit-card services were up almost nearly as much, at 19% to $860 million. Overall, the top 10 categories were down slightly, 0.02% to $20.7 billion.

The biggest advertiser, Procter & Gamble, pulled back 4.3% to $1.6 billion. The most improved advertiser of the top 10 was PepsiCo, climbing 9.1% to $605.3 million. The next-biggest gain was General Motors, at 4.9% to $950 million.

Still, other automotives were down: Toyota Motor cut 7.4% to $581 million, with Ford Motor--cutting the most of any top 10 marketer--30.6% to $554 million.

All top 10 advertisers combined to cut 5.6% of their marketing dollars in the first half of the year versus a year ago, to $7.7 billion.