Media economy
Ad outlook: Longer, slower recovery
By Toni Fitzgerald
Jul 14, 2009 - 6:57:39 AM

If there was any hope that the media economy would bottom out during first quarter, coming in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown, that hope has been dashed.

Just-released second-quarter magazine ad page numbers show even steeper losses than in first quarter, and now another new ad spending forecast is out, this from Magna, that says essentially that, yes, second quarter did stink, and full-year 2009 will be worse than anyone had expected.

The only good news is that we may finally have hit bottom during second quarter, with the media economy expected to rebound slightly during the second half of the year.

But generally Magna’s mid-year 2009 U.S. forecast, released today, gives no hope of a full rebound for the media economy anytime soon.

Full-year 2009 spending will decline by 14.5 percent, from $189 billion to $161 billion, and that’s excluding the impact of political and Olympic advertising.

During first half alone, ad spending will be off 18 percent.

Though declines will lessen through 2010, with ad revenues declining by 2 percent, any real recovery is still years off. The global media agency predicts a mere 1.0 percent compound annual growth rate through 2014.

The prediction for this year is considerably more dire than Magna’s most recent forecast in December 2008. But then many things have changed since then.

For one thing, the country’s economic woes have worsened, with unemployment rising to almost 10 percent, gas prices are inching up again, and retail sales are suffering.

This latest forecast comes from Magna's new director of global forecasting, Brian Wieser, who replaces longtime forecaster Bob Coen, author of December’s report. Wieser’s report is signicantly different, providing a five-year outlook instead of the one-year outlook Coen provided.

It is also based on revenue data provided by media sellers, rather than advertisers, as during the Coen years, which it contends offers a more reliable picture of the ad economy.

Wieser is decidedly more pessimistic about 2009 than Coen was six months ago. The new report predicts that local TV will be down 18.8 percent, compared to a prediction of 7 percent in December.

The forecast for local radio, too, has worsened, from off 6 percent to off 21.8 percent, and with a negative 1 percent compound annual growth rate through 2014.

But the hardest hit medium remains newspapers, which were off 31.4 percent during second quarter, according to Wieser.

He forecasts that full-year 2009 will be off 26.6 percent, compared to Coen’s 12 percent prediction in December, and compound annual growth will be negative 5.3 percent over the next five years.

That improves somewhat when online and national newspaper revenues are included, though not a lot. On that measure, full-year 2009 will be down 24.8 percent.

Magazines, coming off a dismal second quarter in which revenue slid 20.7 percent, will be off 18.3 percent for full-year 2009. Compound annual growth will be negative through 2014, off 3.3 percent per year.

Online has by far the rosiest forecast.

It will be down just 2.2 percent this year, after a 5.1 percent decline in second quarter, and will post compound annual growth of 8.4 percent through 2014.