• by Wayne Friedman , December 10, 2009

Only three media advertising areas have shown growth through the first three-quarters of this year: cable TV, Spanish-language cable TV and free-standing newspaper inserts.

The Nielsen Company says overall U.S. advertising spending declined 11.5% from January through September -- compared to the same time period a year ago -- to $83.4 billion.

Cable TV climbed 9.1%; Spanish-language cable TV improved 36.7%; and free-standing insert coupons rose 11.2%. Sixteen other main categories declined anywhere from 0.5% for the Internet to 48.3% for local Sunday supplements.

While cable generally posted better numbers, other TV areas showed mostly double-digit declines. Broadcast networks sank 13.9%; syndication TV dropped 15.9%; Spot TV in the top 100 DMAs sank 16%; and spot TV in smaller markets, 100 through 210, were 12.6% lower. One lesser hit TV area was Spanish-language network TV, down 4.6%. Radio generally fared a bit better than TV. Spot radio was down 9.6%, while network radio was off 10.2%.

Nielsen says many of the same declining advertising categories continue to hurt media sales results.

Automotive factory/dealer advertising was chopped 30.9% to $5.4 billion, and local auto ad dropped 26.9% to $2.4 billion. Wireless phone media lost 5.4% to $2.5 billion; pharmaceutical was down 4.6% to $3.2 billion; and motion picture advertising slipped 1.7% to $2.5 billion. Improving categories included fast -food restaurants, up 1.8% to $3.1 billion and direct response commercials, 3.3% improved to $1.8 billion. The overall top 10 categories have fallen 12.7% to $25.7 billion.

Year-to-Year Change in Ad Spend, by Media