US ad spend down 11.5%, says Nielsen

Fri Dec 11 2009, 17:22 PM

Total US ad spend dropped 11.5% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2009, reaching USD83.4bn, according to new Nielsen figures. The cross-platform dip marked a total USD10.9bn decrease on the ad dollars spent between Q1 and Q3 2008.

Worst affected was print media, with ad spend on national magazines and national newspapers down 21.4% and 21.6% respectively. Local magazine ad spend dropped by an even bigger 25%, while business-to-business sales fell 33.1% and local Sunday supplement ad sales fell a huge 48.3%.

At the other end of the scale, Spanish language cable TV spend increased 36.7% year-on-year, while coupons ads increased 11.2%. Cable TV saw a healthy 9% increase in ad sales, despite the recession. The report claims online ad spend dropped by 0.5% year-on-year. Though this goes against generally accepted trends that online ad sales are continuing to grow, the Nielsen study only takes traditional display ads into account, thereby discounting online ad leader, Google, and its search ad business, which accounts for the majority of its profits.

The study comes in the same week as three major ad firms released reports. Magna says ad spend has slumped 15% this year, while ZenithOptimedia estimates a 10.2% decline and GroupM a 6.6% drop.