TNS: Q3 Media Spend Grew 3.8%

NEW YORK Overall U.S. ad spending in the third quarter rose 3.8 percent, trailing the market's 4 percent growth through the first nine months of the year to $108.5 billion, per TNS Media Intelligence.Several factors, including a slowing GDP, have cut into ad spending, said Steven Fredericks, president and CEO of TNS.Ad spending among automotive, retail and travel companies has been especially sluggish.Auto companies have cut $1.2 billion in ad spending over the past 12 months, about 1 percent of total expenditures across all media. General Motors alone has cut spending by 20 percent. In total, domestic auto was down more than 11 percent and nondomestic declined 2.7 percent. "It's the fifth consecutive quarter of spending cuts for the auto category," Fredericks said. Media most affected by the cutbacks are cable TV, local newspapers and consumer magazines, he noted.Continuing the trend of the last couple of years, the Internet continues to grow at the expense of newspapers and radio. For the first nine months, Internet display advertising grew 18 percent to $7.15 billion.The Internet's share of overall ad spending rose to 6.6 percent (from 5.8 percent a year ago), compared to newspapers' share, which declined to 18.5 percent from 20 percent, and radio's share, which dipped to 7.5 percent from nearly 8 percent.Television's share was up slightly to 43.5 percent from 43 percent. Magazines were basically flat at slightly less than 20 percent.Other media, which includes outdoor and free-standing inserts, rose to slightly less than 4 percent from 3.6 percent.In television spending, Spanish-language TV was up 19 percent to $3.22 billion, thanks to the World Cup. Political advertising kicked in for spot TV, up 6.3 percent to $12 billion. Both helped to boost total TV advertising, which was up 5.2 percent to $47.1 billion. Other segments of TV had modest growth. Network TV (which includes figures from The CW and MyNetworkTV) was up 3.8 percent to $47.1 billion. Cable TV gained 3.3 percent to $12.1 billion. National TV syndication increased 3.2 percent to $3.1 billion. While business-to-business magazines were down 2 percent to $3.1 billion, magazine media were up 4.5 percent to $21.4 billion. Local magazines had the most growth, up 9.9 percent to $341.6 million, followed by Spanish-language magazines, up 9.6 percent to $106.7 million. Sunday magazines increased 8.3 percent to $1.3 billion. Consumer magazines grew 5.5 percent to $16.4 billion.Newspaper media declined 2.7 percent to $20.2 billion, with local papers taking the biggest hit, down 3.7 percent to $17.5 billion. National newspapers grew 3.6 percent to $2.5 billion. Spanish-language newspapers were up a healthy 9.4 percent to $276.6 million.Radio was down 1.1 percent. Local radio (based on 34 markets) was down 1.5 percent. Network radio was down 1.7 percent to $719.1 million, and national spot radio inched up 0.5 percent to $1.9 billion.Spending in outdoor continued to be healthy, up 8 percent to $2.8 billion.Political spending will be a big contributor to the fourth quarter. Estimated to come in at about $2 billion for the year, half of the total was spent in the last quarter. But it may not be enough to overcome the sluggish GDP and the reluctance of automotive companies to spend, Fredericks noted.Although TNS will not deliver its 2007 forecast until January, Fredericks said he's not surprised that other pundits are tamping down their forecasts. "We think GDP growth will remain sluggish for the first quarter. We won't see a high amount of spending in political, and there won't be any Olympic dollars," he said.

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TNS: Q3 Media Spend Grew 3.8%

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