On the heels of news earlier this week that traditional TV viewing slipped in the third quarter, new figures show that ad spending on TV was down in October.
B&C reports that ad spending on TV dropped 9 percent in October from the year-earlier period, according to the Standard Media Index. The broadcast networks were off 9 percent, and cable was down 7 percent, the report notes.
James Fennessy, chief commercial officer at SMI, told B&C: “SMI’s latest data shows advertisers held back dollars in October, which caused a decline across the market, driven by a slow start to the new TV season. We anticipate that falling commodity prices will flow through to more money in consumers’ pockets in the coming months and ad dollars will begin to follow.”
The TV ad decline was larger than the 4 percent overall decline in ad spending for the month.
Ad spending is not down, but it is going other places than traditional TV. It is moving online. TV needs to accept that and begin adapting to it immediately. Hoping that the technology wave is temporary would be a major mistake for networks and cable. The cable industry continues to force people to buy networks that they will never watch and it’s subscriber numbers continue to drop. Just as radio had to adapt to television, TV needs to adapt to online.