• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 4, 2003

Automotive may still be TV's largest ad category, but TV is becoming a relatively minor medium for most local car dealers, according to data released Thursday during a TV industry conference.

TV now represents only 14.5% of the average auto dealer's ad budgets, found the study, which the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) unveiled during the Television Bureau of Advertising's forecast conference in New York.

While newspapers are still the dominant auto dealer medium - representing 53.1% of their annual ad budget - the Internet is the fastest growing medium and now accounts for nearly 5 cents of every ad dollar spent by an auto dealer.

'02 Auto Dealer Ad Budgets

 Medium      Ad Dollars  Ad Share 
Newspapers   $182,554
53.1% 
Radio         $46,929     13.6% 
Television    $49,842     14.5% 
Direct Mail   $20,854      6.1% 
Internet      $15,867      4.6% 
Other         $27,986      8.1% 
Total
$344,031    100.0% 

Source: National Automobile Dealers Association.

"The share devoted to TV has edged down," conceded Alan Starling, chairman of NADA and president of Holiday Chevrolet-Oldsmobile.

"There are a lot more options," he explained, noting that the Internet has become a big factor for most dealers. While the NADA did not breakout the growth rate of dealer spending on the Internet, the study did show that "miscellaneous ad spending" a category comprised of direct mail, displays, demos and the Internet, grew 13% last year.

During the same period, TV ad spending remained flat at a 14.5% share of auto dealer ad spending, though that is down markedly from as recently as 1998 when TV represented 16.6% of the average dealer's ad budget.

"I don't know the reasons," said Starling when queried by a perplexed TV station executive during the conference, "I'm just giving you the statistics. It may not make sense. It's just the reality."