Rio Olympics Spark TV Advertising, Overall Ad Market Gains

Driven by the Rio Olympics, August pushed up TV ad spending in a number of areas.

Overall, there was a 40% increase in total TV advertising spending -- $1 billion -- to a total of $3.5 billion spent on broadcast and cable, according to data from Standard Media Index.

SMI research comes from the billing systems of 70% of U.S. media agencies -- major media groups and independents.

The Olympics accounted for nearly one third, or 30.7%, of all TV spending in August. TV spending accounted for 55.9% of the total U.S advertising market for August.

NBCUniversal, which aired the games on its broadcast and cable networks, had strong results, rising nearly 300% in August national TV ad revenues. NBC had a 66% broadcast market share in August, versus a 23% share in August 2015.

Looking at ad revenue for other broadcast networks for the month of August, ABC was down 7%, while Fox was off 11.7%, CBS sank 22.5%. and CW gained 3.7%.

TV scatter revenues -- near-term buying of national TV inventory -- accounted for a 33% share of all national TV spending -- an 101% increase in spending in August versus the same month a year ago. Upfront buying had a 65% share -- a 22% increase versus the same time period a year ago.

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U.S. advertising spend for August grew 24.8%.

Digital ad spending improved 16.4% to $1.5 billion to now total a 33.8% share of the total ad market. Looking specifically at major digital gainers, pure-play video grew 41.5%; with pure-play social sites posting a big 53.1% hike.

Newspapers showed a 23.5% decrease for the month, while magazines had a 7.9% decline.

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