January Ad spending Up 5Percent, TV Soft, Radio Down

The U.S. ad market delivered a vibrant start to the year despite top advertiser categories, such as automotive and consumer packaged goods (CPG), pulling back on spending, said Standard Media Index (SMI), which reports on 80% of total national ad spend direct from the major global agencies. January saw the overall ad market grow +5% compared to last year, according to its latest report.

James Fennessy

“The overall ad market opened strongly in 2015, thanks largely to the continued robust performance of the digital sector. A weak upfront, soft ratings and reduced spend from a few major advertiser categories continues to impact the TV market, although the scatter market is rapidly growing both in volume and price as the economy continues to strengthen,” said James Fennessy, Standard Media Index’s chief commercial officer.

“We are confident this will deliver solid results for the major broadcast and cable groups to close out the quarter.”

SMI January Ad Market Highlights

• SMI analysis shows all major broadcast networks experienced declines in January.
• Primetime broadcast experienced a decline of -15% YoY, which was the major contributor to its overall fall of -6% for the month.
• Cable grew a healthy +5% driven by the strong performance of ESPN.
• Hispanic networks, Telemundo and Univision showed significant double digit increases.
• The scatter market grew +39% year-on-year, however it wasn’t enough to counteract the fallout from the disappointing upfront market, in which upfront dollars dropped -6% for the month.
• In print media, the magazine market stayed flat in January and newspapers dropped -3% when compared to the year before.
• Radio ad revenues dropped -6% in the month of January.

SMI’s latest data shows that the fastest growing advertiser categories in January were pharmaceuticals (+18%), quick serve restaurants (+17%) and consumer electronics (+18%), which bought up the bulk of ad space across the market.