NEW YORK
Media spending in the United States increased last year by 2.3 percent, according to equity researcher Veronis Suhler Stevenson. A decline of 0.4 percent is expected this year across the sector, which includes advertising and marketing.
VSS issued the figures in a new mid-term forecast updating five-year projections it laid out last year. A year-to-year decline in overall media spending would represent a first in VSS’s 30 years of measurement, the company said.
Newspapers will take the hardest hit in ’09, contracting by more than 16 percent. Spending on broadcast TV is expected to slide by 9 percent, compared to less than half-a-percent last year.
Magazines will register a decline of nearly 9 percent; broadcast and satellite radio will dip around 7 percent.
VSS said ad spending would drop more than 7 percent in 2009, “the first two-year decline in 75 years as it also declined in 2008.”
Internet and mobile media platforms continue to grow, although more slowly than expected. VSS now puts growth for that segment in ’09 at 9 percent instead of the nearly 16 percent previously predicted. Mobile content appears to hold the greatest promise for 2009, at a projected 34 percent growth.
