• by Wayne Friedman , August 28, 2009

Broadcasting television advertising took another nosedive -- down 12.8% in the second quarter of 2009, according to the Television Bureau of Advertising, versus the same period a year ago.

Total advertising landed at $9.6 billion for the period, down from the $11.0 billion of a year ago. Local broadcast TV suffered the most, giving up 26.3%. Network television was down 6.9% in the period and syndicated TV slipped 1.5%.

As evidence of the continued dire broadcast ad trend, only one of the top 25 TV categories in spot TV advertising was up in the period: legal service advertising.

The biggest category in spot TV advertising, as well as all of television -- automotive --continued its free fall, down 54.5%. The second-biggest -- communications -- slipped 7.9%; restaurants lost 16.2%; travel, hotels and resorts gave up 14.7%; car and truck dealer advertising moved in line with automotive in general, down 43.2%.

The sixth-biggest category, furniture stores, lost 23.1%; insurance gave up 19.0%; legal services inched up 1.6%; schools, colleges and camps was off 7.3%; and, the 10th-ranked category, government and organization spending, dipped 7.5%.

For the first six months of 2009, network TV lost 5.8%, syndicated TV was virtually the same at a 0.7% slip, while local broadcast TV continued to suffer, losing 27.0%.