By Georg Szalai
NEW YORK -- U.S. advertising outlay for the year through the end of September is up 4.5% year-over-year, driven by gains in Internet, Spanish-language media and cable TV spending, while network TV is lagging the comparable year-ago results by 3.5%, according to preliminary figures released Thursday by Nielsen Monitor-Plus. [Editor's Note: All four of these ad areas will be important to SAG and AFTRA when they negotiate a new commercials contract in 2006.]
The advertising intelligence service of Nielsen Media Research, which, like The Hollywood Reporter and Back Stage, is owned by VNU, also said spot TV in smaller markets and network radio has shown little movement in 2005 through the third quarter. The survey didn't detail specific ad figures.
Meanwhile on Thursday, Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Fine cut her U.S. ad spending growth forecast for 2005 from 3.7% to 3.2%. For next year, she reduced her projection from 5.2% to 4.5%.
She cited potential weaknesses in the entertainment and auto spending categories, as well as ad rate pressures in traditional media.
The latest ad reports came just ahead of much-anticipated ad market updates at big media investor conferences organized here by investment banks UBS and Credit Suisse First Boston. Entertainment industry executives also may use the conferences to update Wall Street on latest ad market trends.
"Network TV showed positive growth through the first half of 2005," said Jeff King, managing director of Nielsen Monitor-Plus. "However, the absence of the Olympics in the third quarter resulted in a year-to-date decline."
Internet advertising is up 19.4% for the nine months period, followed by a 16.7% increase in Spanish-language TV and an 11.9% cable TV gain. Spot TV is up 2.5% for the top 100 markets and up 1.6% for markets 101-201.
The top 10 marketers spent $14.06 billion the January-September period, up 1.8% from last year, even though DaimlerChrysler cut back 5.6%, according to the latest survey. Media titan Time Warner shows up as the fifth-largest marketer in the report, having increased spending 15.5% to nearly $1.21 billion through September. The Walt Disney Co. is ranked ninth with an 11.2% spending decline to $896 million.
Among the top 10 product categories, most have increased spending with the exception of local auto dealerships and department stores. Motion picture spending is up 1.2% at $2.61 billion as of Sept. 30, according to Nielsen.
Nielsen's Product Placement tracking service also "continues to show significant growth in the integration of product occurrences in primetime broadcast network programming," the company said. The top 10 brands in the product placement category totaled 12,445 occurrences through the third quarter of the year. The top 10 programs with product placements featured 27,244 occurrences through September.
NBC's "The Contender" ranked first with more than twice the placement hits as second-ranked "American Idol" on Fox. The shows, neither of which is currently on the air, had 7,514 and 3,497 product occurrences, respectively.
Products seen on those shows also led the charge. Coca-Cola Classic was the brand featured most often in the product placement category with 2,818 occurrences, followed by Everlast Apparel and Everlast Sporting Equipment.
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Georg Szalai writes for The Hollywood Reporter.
www.backstage.com
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