Nielsen: Ad spending
falls 9 percent in 2009
Other shorts: Hockey semi will air live on West Coast
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Feb 25, 2010
Nielsen: Ad spending falls 9 percent in 2009
2009 was a bad year for advertising, as everyone knew even before Nielsen issued its full-year spending numbers yesterday, showing that ad spending declined 9 percent compared with 2008. But there were a few encouraging signs during fourth quarter that hint of, if not a recovery, a much milder ad climate in 2010. Spending was off $11.6 billion from the previous year, to $117 billion, but fourth-quarter revenue declines slowed. Spending was off just 2 percent, the sixth straight quarter of decline, yet it was nowhere near as steep as the 15.4 percent and 11.5 percent losses the previous quarters. Of course it helped that 4Q 2009 was being compared to a very soft 4Q 2008, but Nielsen also says that most top advertisers increased their spending late in the year. Just three categories -- Spanish-language cable, cable and FSI coupon -- showed year-to-year gains, with Spanish-language cable leading the way at 32.2 percent. Local Sunday supplements showed the biggest decline, off 44.9 percent, with B2B, local and national magazines also in the bottom four in terms of losses. Three of the top five ad categories saw slight year-to-year gains, including pharmaceutical, fast food and department stores, while automotive, while still the No. 1 category, slid 23.4 percent.
Puck plucked: U.S. hockey semi will air live on West Coast
Guess NBC has been taking note of all the protests over its tape-delayed coverage of the Vancouver Winter Games. The network said yesterday that the U.S. men's hockey semifinal game against the winner of the Czech Republic-Finland will be broadcast live in all time zones Friday at 3 p.m., changing the tape-delay format the network has been employing for the West Coast. Though a portion of NBC's coverage is tape delayed on the East Coast, certain events, such as speed skating and figure skating, have been airing live, prompting complaints from West Coast viewers on blogs and sports talk radio. Yet NBC need look no further than the numbers for these Games to reassure itself that its approach works: Ratings are up some 20 percent over the 2006 Turin Games, which aired with even more tape delays. Friday's winner will advance to the gold medal game.
Lamar yanks puppet cleavage bus shelter ad
Sorry, puppet fetishists, but Colorado Springs is leery of displaying cleavage of any sort on an outdoor poster, even when it's of the inanimate object sort. Lamar Advertising has rejected bus shelter ads in Colorado Springs for a tour of the raucous Tony-winning show “Avenue Q,” which were to depict the pink cleavage of one of the show’s puppet characters. The play is best described as an R-rated version of “Sesame Street,” wherein, for example, one of the Bert and Ernie-type characters is a closeted gay guy in love with his roomie. In fact, the name of the puppet who was to appear in the ad is Lucy the Slut. Lamar decided Lucy and her assets were a little too risqué for the typically conservative market. Account executive Jeff Moore told The Gazette of Colorado Springs, “If I have to explain it to my 4-year-old or my grandmother, we don’t put it up.” The ads in question have been replaced with one that features a much safer head shot of one of the “Avenue Q” characters. The play runs in Colorado Springs on March 16 and 17.
Study: Newspaper sites leading local source
When it comes to finding local information online, newspapers remain the No. 1 source of information. But there's not much of a gap between them and other sources. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they rely on local newspaper web sites for local information, according to a survey from comScore and the Newspaper Association of America, followed closely by online portals at 54 percent and local TV web sites at 53 percent. Those three were followed by specialty web sites (30 percent), social networking sites (25 percent), radio web sites (20 percent) and other sites (15 percent). Of course where a person surfs depends on what type of information he is looking to find. For local news, the online source used most often by respondents is local TV station web sites (31 percent), followed by local newspaper web sites (30 percent) and online portals (14 percent). But local newspaper sites lead when it comes to local information, local sports, local entertainment and local classifieds. Also, newspaper web sites came out on top as the most-trusted source, regardless of content type—news, information, sports, entertainment and classifieds. Newspaper web sites were followed by local TV web sites in all five categories when it came to trustworthiness.
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