In April, the overall market rose by 1% on a year-over-year basis, thanks largely to the digital sector, whose healthy +21% increase propelled the market to land in the black. SMI’s data shows digital ad revenues rose across the sector, attracting big gains in social media (+70%), video (+44%), ad networks/exchanges (+35%) and Internet radio (+32%).
Television declined by -6% for the month, led by declines in broadcast (-8%) and cable (-7%). Both spot and local TV deliver mid-single digit increases which helped the overall sector’s performance. CBS and ABC were the best performing broadcast networks, delivering similar results to those achieved in 2014. On the cable side, Discovery was the stand-out performer, growing by more than +17% against the same period last year. Food Network and HGTV also did well with solid single digit gains.
SMI’s data shows the big advertising categories that have changed their mix of spend this year continue to be CPG, retail and financial services. All three of these categories have shifted dollars away from television and have been recording significant double-digit growth on digital spend.
Scatter volumes were up in TV but pricing was not co-operating. Broadcast scatter volume jumped by +18% in April and cable grew a more modest +5%. Observing broadcast year to date figures, scatter spend on broadcast is up +19% and cable has grown by +16%. Unfortunately, both of these increases are not enough to make up for the pull-back in Upfront dollars we have seen, causing the ongoing softness in the TV market.