New adspend monitor claims the market is rebounding and magazine revenue is up 41%
The first figures from new adspend monitoring company Standard Media Index have revealed some apparently wild variations across media sectors.
According to SMI – which has been gathering spending data from Australia’s largest media agencies – advertising spending on magazines shot up by 41% in August compared to July. But SMI also says that magazines are down by 24% on the same period 12 months ago.
In a press release, SMI says that the Australian ad market may have “hit the bottom and entered a recovery phase”.
SMI claims that August media revenues are up nine per cent on July 2009, with magazines and out-ofhome by far the biggest winners, and online among the weakest:
% Change Aug 09 v Jul 09
- Magazines +41%
- Out of Home +32%
- Cinema +19%
- Newspapers +8%
- Television +5%
- Radio +5%
- Digital +5%
- Totals +9%
Jane Schulze, SMI’s publisher, claimed that because the August figures were better than July – by SMI’s calculations the first increase in three months – revenues may be on the way back up. She said: “This is the first good news to emerge for the media sector for months. SMI figures show the media agency advertising spend has been falling most of the year, so to see a change in direction can only be seen as positive news for the media sector. If sustained into September, it could suggest the end of the worst advertising downturn in living memory.’’
However, the numbers may simply indicate that spend in August tends to be higher than in July every year.
The change for August 2009 compared to August 2008 is more in line with other reports:
- Digital +8%
- Radio -6%
- Television -10%
- Out of Home -10%
- Newspapers -16%
- Magazines -24%
- Cinema -46%
- Totals -11%
SMI was launched by Schulze, a former journalist on The Australian, just over a month ago in an attempt to use media agencies’ own data to gain a snapshot of advertising spend.
In another seemingly anomalous piece of data, SMI claimed that advertising revenue for radio in the first half the year was up by 5% compared to the same period last year. This directly contradicts the radio industry’s own figures which have so far this year all indicated a drop in revenue.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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This is like comparing March figures with January and saying “Wow! Uptick!” July is traditionally a difficult month – new financial year, first month of the quarter. So of course August is going to be better. It always is. The relevant number here is 24% down on last year. That’s the ongoing story unfortunately.
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