NEW YORK As the economy begins its turnaround, the global advertising market is showing signs of improvement. According to Nielsen's Global AdView Pulse, which tracks advertising across 27 markets in Asia, North America, Europe and Africa, overall media expenditures decreased 6.8 percent for the first half of the year compared to the first half of 2008.

However, the second quarter closed with a more contained decline of 5.8 percent compared to a 7.9 percent decline in the first quarter (vs. the same periods of the previous year). The Asia-Pacific region is driving the improvements, with 6.5 percent ad expenditure growth in Q2, while Europe and North America are still facing challenges posed by the economic crisis.

All media types have suffered from general cutbacks by advertisers throughout the first half of the year. Magazines and newspapers took the biggest hits, losing 18.5 and 7.5 percent, respectively, with negative growth in all regions.



Radio has emerged in many markets as the media type with the most contained percentage decline (down 3.1 percent globally) -- and it even registered an increase in the Asia-Pacific realm (up 3.1 percent).

Television, too, delivered mixed results depending on the region, with North America (down 14.9 percent) and Europe (down 8.0 percent) showing drops in spending, while Asia-Pacific showed growth compared to the first half of 2008.

As with the half-year results, television and radio are the media types showing the smallest percentage decreases in the second quarter and they are still showing growth in Asia-Pacific and losing revenue in both Europe and North America.



"In this economic environment, brands favor broadcast media: TV always being considered as the most reliable media in hard times and radio provides a solid call to action platform," said Ben van der Werf, managing director, Global AdView at Nielsen. "Throughout the remainder of 2009 and beyond, we can expect to see ad spend for broadcast media slowly moving toward better performance -- but it's unlikely print advertising will show any great gains in the near future. Though newspapers show a more contained decline versus the quarter two 2008, driven by a less steep decline in Asia Pacific, magazines seem not to have benefited by the slight improvements of the market. They closed the quarter with a 19.6 percent decrease in ad revenue, which is a larger decline than what was reported in the first quarter of the year."