TV Advertising Shows Recovery Signs

According to the latest forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media, global net TV advertising is expected to climb 3.7% in 2010 to US$116 billion, after an extremely difficult year in 2009.
Increased consumer and corporate confidence along with this summer's World Cup finals will help boost TV advertising spend this year.
However, the total expenditure will not equal the peak set in 2008 until at least 2012.
"The absence of a major international sporting event in 2009 added to the slump which resulted in global net TV advertising expenditure falling by 8.1% and overall expenditure fell in 39 out of the 53 forecast countries," said Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media and Author of Global TV Advertising Forecasts.
"We will definitely see an improvement this year as spending is set to increase in a number of territories including Argentina (up 16%), China (up 12%), India (up 10%), South Africa (up 15% as World Cup host), Turkey (up 15%) and Vietnam (15%)."
Murray added: "However not every country will record an improvement and TV advertising is forecast to fall in 10 countries (Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Puerto Rico, Romania and Taiwan) in 2010."
The global recession is not the only factor adversely affecting the ad market, audiences are fragmenting. This has given viewers greater channel choice and has led advertisers to question the rates that they were paying to the established players. These channels have had to show greater price flexibility to retain advertisers.
The established players have also reacted to this loss of audience share on their core channels by launching thematic networks – networks focusing on a particular genre. They are hoping that the collective audiences of these thematic channels will mean that their total number of viewers will be higher than for the core channel before fragmentation started.
"With muted improvements expected in 2010 and 2011, the ad market is looking forward to 2012 – the year of the London Olympics (in an ad-friendly time zone for most of the world's top markets) and the US Presidential Elections. According to our forecasts, net TV advertising expenditure will total US$126 billion in 2012," explained Murray.
He concluded: "Growth thereafter will be slower, though the soccer World Cup finals in Brazil will boost the 2014 figures. The total will be US$141 billion in 2015. Asia Pacific (US$34.4 billion) will overtake Western Europe (US$33.6 billion), though North America (US$47.1 billion) will remain the dominant region."
(BMcN/BMcC)