• by Wayne Friedman , February 23, 2018

The U.S. advertising market made hefty gains in January, growing by nearly 11%, according to Standard Media Index -- mostly due to gains from awards shows on broadcast TV and generally higher digital media spending.

National TV spending grew 7.1% for the month over the previous year -- an 11.1% increase for cable TV networks and a 2.7% rise for broadcast networks.

One major factor was CBS’ airing of “The Grammys” in January versus February 2017. Without “The Grammys,” national TV spending grew 5.3%. Just looking at broadcast networks, excluding “The Grammys,” advertising revenues were flat versus January 2017.

During the month, NBC witnessed a 7.1% hike for its “Golden Globes Awards” to $32 million. SMI says that for “The Grammys,” CBS rose 3.8% to $61 million versus last year’s airing in February.

Cable TV news networks had another stellar month -- up 25% versus January 2017. MSNBC was in the lead, rocketing up 62% in advertising revenues. CNN also had strong gains -- up 32%. Fox News Channel rose 17%.

Continuing its steady double-digit percentage gains over the last few months, digital media grew 16.8% in January versus the same month the year before. During mid-2017, digital media’s growth slowed down to high-single-digit percentage hikes -- resuming higher growth in October.

In January, social-media advertising was the strongest growth segment of all digital platforms -- up 42%. Digital video was also 10% higher, with larger gains from premium video providers. SMI says Hulu increased 20%, while music video platform Vevo nearly doubled its ad revenue.

Older media platforms tallied losses: radio was down 6.1%; out-of-home lost 2.1%, and print advertising gave up 3%.

SMI derives its estimates from national TV media agencies, representing 80% of U.S. media buying.