Report: Overall Ad Revenue Moving At Snail's Pace

A slow-moving U.S. advertising market only inched up 0.7% in the second quarter of this year -- partly due to media spending going into Winter Olympics media budgets earlier in the year, reports mediapost.com.

Jon Swallen, chief research officer at Kantar Media North America, stated: “Our analysis shows that Olympics advertisers reduced their year-over-year Q2 spending by more than 4%, while non-Olympics advertisers posted a 2% increase. The latter is more indicative of core advertising market performance at the midyear point.”

Specific media that took hits include broadcast network TV, down 7.2%; magazines, off 5.7%; newspapers, shedding 10.4%; radio, off 3.6%; outdoor, slipping 1.6%; and spot TV, off 0.5%.

Broadcast network TV suffered from fewer NCAA March Madness and NBA playoff games compared to last year; with spot TV seeing lower spending among automotive and telecom advertisers -- although it had higher political ad budgets.

In radio -- for both national and local segments -- lower spending resulted from financial services, insurance and restaurant categories. Small gains came from telecom and retail advertisers.

Still, other specific media showed strength in the period, including cable TV, Spanish-language TV, and Internet display advertising.