New York: Healthy after the hurricane

Thousands of residents in the New York area are still recovering from Hurricane Sandy, but the October storm caused only a minor blip in the media economy.

Some New York advertisers whose shops and products were damaged by the storm did pull their ads, but others moved in quickly to take their place.

The market is active and healthy, with pricing generally flat to a year ago.

“For local clients in Sandy’s path, there were some cancellations of media schedules,” says Joyclyn Faust, senior buying director at Harmelin Media. “But I only had one client cancel because there was damage to the store.”

The main media impact of Sandy was on TV ratings. Nielsen decided not to release November 2012 ratings for the market because too many households in its survey were impacted by the storm, losing power for days.

Strong categories on TV are the usual auto and retail, while prime access is the tightest daypart. Pricing depends on how an individual station or show is doing in the ratings.

“Efficiencies are pretty flat from year to year,” Faust says. “If a station’s ratings have gone down from year to year, they have to lower rates in order to remain competitive with the market.”

Cable TV continues to be one of the most efficient buys in New York for its ability to target audiences as well as zones within the market.  An advertiser might choose to target northern New Jersey and lower Connecticut but not Long Island, for example.

Radio is also healthy, with strong categories including auto, telecom, fast food and movies. As always, morning and afternoon drive times are tightest, with availability depending on the station and target demographic.

The New York radio market is one of the deepest in the country, with a number of stations of varying formats that consistently draw solid ratings. For example, in January there were 16 stations that averaged at least a 2.5 portable people meter rating, according to Arbitron.

In fact, in January the market’s top nine stations each averaged at least a 4.1 rating, and all were different formats–adult contemporary, classic hits, urban, contemporary hits, news, tropical, classic rock, hot adult contemporary and Spanish hits.

Leading the way in January was Clear Channel’s adult contemporary station WLTW-FM, which averaged a 7.2 rating. CBS’s classic hits station WCBS-FM was No. 2 with a 6.2.

Tags: ad spending new york city, auto, local ad spending, local advertising, media, New York, new york city advertising, nyc advertising, nyc radio, nyc tv, ratings, target, tv, WABC, WCBS