Nielsen Reports Small Drop in U.S. Ad Spending

NEW YORK, September 19:
For the first half of the year, advertising spending in the U.S. was down just
1.4 percent, with gains in cable and syndicated TV offsetting declines in
network TV and the print and radio mediums, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Advertising on cable TV
saw the largest growth, with an increase of 8.1 percent over the first half of
2007, followed by syndication TV with a 7.2-percent rise. Spanish-language TV
was up 4.5 percent. Network TV, meanwhile, dropped 6 percent. Spot radio fared
the worst among the 19 media categories analyzed by Nielsen, declining by 10.1
percent compared with the same period last year.

Advertising spending by
the top ten companies for the first half of 2008 reached almost $7.7 billion,
down about 6 percent. Three of the top ten advertisers increased their budgets
from the first half of 2007 to the first half of this year, while the majority
showed decreases. Procter & Gamble was the biggest advertiser, despite a
4.3-percent fall in spending to $1.6 billion. PepsiCo showed the biggest
increase, at 9.1 percent to $605.3 million, while the biggest drop was recorded
at Ford Motor Co., where ad outlay fell almost 31 percent to $554 million. The
only media conglomerate in the top ten list was Time Warner, whose ad spend
fell 8.8 percent to $592 million.

—By Mansha Daswani