Pivotal Research Group has slightly downgraded its U.S.
advertising expectations for 2012, and is now forecasting total ad spending in
the country to grow 1.4% to $173.8 billion, up from $171.4 billion. The previous
forecast had ad spend rising by 2.3% this year.
The report prepared by Pivotal's senior research
analyst Brian Wieser says, "After a review of the second-quarter earnings
and commentary from media buyers in recent weeks, we are revising expectations
for ad-supported media downward. What seemed an improving environment in first-quarter
now appears to have been a 'false dawn.' The second quarter turned out to be in
line with trends observed during late 2011, growing by only 1.3%. With the U.S.
'fiscal cliff' unlikely to be resolved soon, and with economists downgrading
their expectations for the economy at the same time, we're skeptical that third-quarter
will reverse course again."
Wieser adds that national TV "was weaker than our prior
expectations" in the second quarter. "With negative growth in network
TV and diminished growth in cable, the total sector grew by only 2% in second-quarter.
While management teams identified various reasons to explain declines, the fact
that budgets didn't show up elsewhere indicates to us that the markets
generally softened more in line with the trend we observed coming out of last
year's fourth quarter."
Meanwhile, local TV had a solid second quarter ad
revenue-wise, growing by 9.8%, Wieser says, which is higher than Pivotal's
projection of 7.8%.
"Political [advertising] is likely to have had a stronger
impact than originally forecast, especially on local broadcasting," he
says. For local TV, Wieser adds, "Overall, our prior forecasts now appear
too conservative. We now expect local TV advertising to grow by 15% in 2012 vs.
2011."
Wieser is projecting total local political ad revenues for
the year to reach $2.9 billion.
Here's a breakdown of Pivotal's revised ad dollar
projections for 2012, including percentage of increase or decrease, for each
media platform.
NATIONAL TV
National cable: $23.2 billion, up 5.8% or $1.26 billion
National broadcast, English language networks: $13.6 billion, a 1% increase or
$141 million
National syndicated TV: $1.94 billion, up 2.5% or $48 million
National broadcast for the Spanish language networks: $1.25 billion, a 7.5%
increase or $88 million
Total national TV ad revenue combining all the above: $40.1 billion, a 4%
increase or $1.6 billion more than 2011
TOTAL MAGAZINES
$13 billion, a decrease of 5.1% or $760 million
NATIONAL DIGITAL
National digital display: $5.37 billion, a decrease of 9.2%
or $548 million
Online video advertising: $2.25 billion, an increase of 24.8% or $448 million
Mobile search: $1.28 billion, an increase of 69.6% or $529 million
Total national digital TV ad revenue combining all the above: $8.9 billion, an
increase of 5.1% or $430 million
NETWORK AND SATELLITE
RADIO
$1.26 billion, an increase of 4.7% or $57 million
NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS
$753.2 million, a decrease of 11.3% or $96 million
NATIONAL CINEMA
$673.4 million, an increase of 4.5% or $29 million
TOTAL NATIONAL ADVERTISING
$64.86 billion, an increase of 2% or $1.36 billion
LOCAL TELEVISION
Local broadcast TV stations: $15.7 billion, an increase of
3.1% or $467 million
Local cable television: $4 billion, an increase of 3.1% or $121 million
Total local TV combining the two above: $19.7 billion, up 3.1% or $588 million
LOCAL NEWSPAPERS
$18.2 billion, a decrease of 8.1% or $1.6 billion
LOCAL RADIO
$14 billion, a decrease of 0.1% or $17 million
OUTDOOR
$5.9 billion, an increase of 3.3% or $192 million
LOCAL DIGITAL
$4.5 billion, an increase of 4.8% or $207 million
TOTAL LOCAL ADVERTISING
$62.3 billion, a decrease of 1% or $630 million
TOTAL DIRECT MEDIA ADVERTISING
$46.6 billion, an increase of 3.9% or $1.7 billion
OVERALL TOTAL U.S. ADVERTISING FOR 2012
$173.8 billion, an increase of 1.4% or $2.4 billion
