• by Wayne Friedman , November 11, 2016

Near-term advertising deals may take a pause -- all due to the surprising results of the presidential election.

“We do expect an impact in the form of delays in spending decisions now that the unexpected combination of a Republican victory for the presidency and control of Congress occurred,” writes Brian Wieser, senior research analyst of Pivotal Research Group.

He adds: “Still-to-be defined policy choices could impact the economy in difficult-to-predict ways during 2017, and we think this lack of clarity may curtail advertising growth rates.”

That said, Wieser -- as well as other advertising industry analysts -- have anticipated slowdown in a post-election period.

Looking at the third quarter, he says U.S. media owners likely grew ad revenues by about 4% -- but less than the 5% gain in the second quarter of this year and the 7% gains in the first quarter of 2016/fourth quarter of 2015.

In the third quarter of this year, he estimates national TV advertising fell 1% -- excluding incremental and non-cyclical revenues generated by the Olympics. All this would be down for national TV owners from the 4% gain in the second quarter and the 5% hike in the first quarter of this year.

With regard to political advertising, he says, it was “disappointing for local TV this quarter (and year) probably up by only 10% versus the third quarter of 2014.”

The two big digital media players, Facebook and Google, grew 50% and 22% in the period -- a total advertising growth of $2.9 billion in the period.