• by Wayne Friedman , December 20, 2017

U.S. digital media spending continues to post strong gains for November — up 9% — although it has not seen the double-digit percentage gains witnessed in previous months.

Standard Media Index said U.S. advertising spending for the month was up 5%, with national TV and radio each showing 2% gains for the month. Out-of-home ads registered the biggest percentage hike for any specific media — at 14%.

For the year, through November, digital is now at a 12% increase over the same time period a year ago.

National TV broke down this way: Broadcast inched up 1%  and cable saw a 3% hike. But for the year overall, national TV is still down 3%: National broadcast networks are off 4%, while national cable has lost 2%.

Sports programming pulled 5% more revenues for November for all national TV, while entertainment programming added 1%. News programming gained 1% as well. For 11 months of 2017, national TV advertising for entertainment programming is down 1% and sports have lost 11% — largely due to comparisons to the Olympics in 2016.

The area with the biggest gains — in terms of both viewing and advertising revenues — is news programming, which has gained 8% in national TV advertising revenues year to date. Other estimates show total news programming earned low double-digit percentage hikes year to date.

SMI’s data is derived from actual spending by media agencies representing approximately 80% of all U.S. agency spend.