Indiantelevision.com Team

(2 September 2009 1:50 pm)

MUMBAI: Hovering around the downturn spiral, the US economy saw a 15.4 per cent drop in its advertising spends during the first half of 2009 as compared to the same period a year ago.

According to the latest Nielsen study released Tuesday, the first two quarters of the year witnessed ad expenditure slide by more than $10.3 billion to a total spend of $56.9 billion.

While the total spend on network TV shrunk by 7 per cent, the study states that spot TV in the top 100 designated markets fell 17.4 per cent.

Spending on national newspaper was also cut down by 23 per cent while that of local newspapers dipped by 13.2 per cent.

For magazines and national magazines, ad spending fell to a little over 21 per cent while the locals saw a 25.4 per cent dip. Spendings on business-to-business publications plunged 32 per cent. Internet ad spending too slipped by about 1 per cent.

Interestingly, the only category to walk up the growth ladder was cable TV which saw an improved ad spending by 1.5 per cent. However, this impetus in growth came from the second quarter of the year as cable spending was down nearly 3 per cent at the end of the first quarter. Spanish-language cable spending grew 0.6 per cent.

Talking about product categories, Nielsen reveals that though automotive ad spending was pushed down by 31 per cent, it remained the largest product category at $3.7 billion.

Also, pharmaceutical ad spending fell 11.3 per cent while furniture stores saw a 3.6 per cent slide.