Nielsen Ad Report: Online Up 19%; Newspapers Down 15%

Nielsen has a variety of interesting charts out today showing total advertising spend for 2006 vs. 2007.  Some stats of note: Internet advertising was up 18.9%, newspaper advertising was down -15.2%. One thing to consider is that many newspapers have moved heavily online so while the newspaper ad might be down, they picked up some of the uptick in Internet ads. Still a huge loss as newspapers is a mature market while Internet is still in overall growth mode.

Overall ad growth was only up 0.6% while ad growth in Asia was up 12.1% and in the combined Europe/Middle East and Africa region growth was at 5%.

From a category standpoint, financial services and wireless services both increased overall ad spend by 12-14%. It’s important to note that this was basically before the meltdown took full effect. Automotive ad spend was down by 11% year over year.

  Media Category                             2006 vs. 2007
                                                % Change
  Internet                                         18.9 %
  National Magazines                                7.6 %
  Outdoor                                           7.2 %
  Nat'l Sunday Supplements                          4.9 %
  National Cable TV                                 2.2 %
  Spanish-Language TV                               1.5 %
  Network TV                                       -1.5 %
  Local Magazines                                  -1.7 %
  Spot Radio                                       -2.0 %
  Spot TV Markets 101-210                          -2.6 %
  Network Radio                                    -3.9 %
  B-to-B Magazines                                 -4.0 %
  Local Sunday Supplements                         -4.9 %
  Spot TV Markets 1-100                            -5.1 %
  Local Newspaper                                  -7.5 %
  Nat'l Newspaper                                  -7.7 %
  Total Advertising Spending                        0.6 %

  Source:  Nielsen Monitor-Plus
  -Syndicated TV and FSI Coupons were excluded due to methodology changes
  -Newspaper reflects display ads only