Stormy Weather: Analyst Downgrades Ad Market on Sandy Fears

Storm may have cost media industry half a billion dollars

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Already looking rocky at the start of the fourth quarter, the media economy this week was dealt a staggering blow by Hurricane Sandy.

In disrupting local TV and radio broadcasts and putting a halt to all New York media buying, Monday’s once-in-a-generation storm is likely to cost the industry as much as half a billion dollars, according to Pivotal Research Group senior analyst Brian Wieser. 

"If we assume that spending equivalent to one day of the fourth quarter was ‘lost’—because of interruptions to local TV and radio programming for several days in a significant portion of the country, paired with the impact on decision making among national marketers and media buyers based in the storm’s footprint—the storm will cost the industry almost $500 million of activity," Wieser wrote in a note to investors.

In the wake of the storm’s passing, Wieser revised his U.S.

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