Ad spending on national linear TV is down $500 million so far in the fourth quarter following a 2% decline in November, according to new figures from Standard Media Index.
Spending so far in the quarter is down 6%. Cable spending is down 7%, broadcast is 5% lower and syndication has taken a 19% dive.
The bright spot appears to be sports. The category is up 1% in the quarter as growth in other sports offsets the shift of NFL Thursday Night Football from Fox to Amazon Prime Video. Adjusting for the move of TNF, national linear TV ad spending was down just 0.6% in November.
Sports spending was up 12% in November. Spending on NFL and college football games was down 15% because of the TNF situation. Adding TNF revenue from Prime Video back into the linear total reduced the drop to 8%.
Despite the drop, football (college and pro) generated the most ad spending at $1.1 billion.
Thanks to the World Cup, spending on soccer was up $209 million, baseball was up $69 million and NCAA football spending was up by $44 million.
So far in the fourth quarter, spending on entertainment programming is down 10%. Spending on news programming is also down 10%, SMI said.
Spending by tech companies was down 44% (or $181 million) in the quarter. Financial-services spending was down 13% and auto spending fell 2%. Travel industry spending was up 87%. Consumer packaged goods brands increased their spending by 16%. ■
