Bucking Ad Trend

Cable ended the 2007 calendar year growing its national ad-sales business by 6.5%, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

Only cable and Spanish-language TV, with a year-over-year growth rate of 1.3%, posted gains for 2007 among television outlets, according to the compilation. By comparison, network TV was down 2% and spot TV was down 10.2%, while advertising on nationally syndicated fare was down 1.5%.

Spending for the year across all media was $148.99 billion, up 0.2% when compared to 2006, according to TNS. Among cable and broadcast, network TV attracted the largest amount of advertising dollars at $22.4 billion. The largest category overall was consumer magazines, attracting $24.4 billion in ads.

In the past, Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research for the firm, proffered cable growth numbers as a good news, bad news scenario. Overall, sales were up, but a chunk of that revenue shifted from sales to direct-response media clients, who traditionally buy otherwise unsold inventory at reduced rates.

But Swallen said he’s dug deeper into the ’07 figures. He found that among the 45 ad-supported cable networks monitored by TNS, programmers are selling availabilities once used for in-house promotions to direct marketers, thus monetizing time that previously had yielded no ad revenue.

Cable finished 2007 with $17.84 billion in ad sales, TNS estimated.

The top 10 advertisers in 2007 spent $18.6 billion last year, a figure that was down overall from 2006 by 0.3% Only three of the top 10 actually increased spending last year: Verizon Communications raised its outlay 11.1%, to $2.1 billion; Procter & Gamble bought $3.4 million of airtime, for a 5.6% hike; and Sprint Nextel increased its spending 4.9%, to $1.3 billion.

But 2007, overall, was marked by pessimism among advertisers and marketers, as the impact of the housing finance crunch rippled into lower consumer spending and hits to corporate bottom lines. That pessimism continues today, with the only light on the horizon coming from the anticipated ad sales from the Olympics and political advertising in the second half, he said.