Media Ad Revenue Predictions

 Ad revenue for media companies will be up only 2.6% in 2007. Syndication and cable TV are
expected to increase their share of the ad pie slightly and network TV and spot TV is predicted to lose some share.

That's according to an annual prediction by market research company TNS Media Intelligence.

That 2.6% figure is down from the 3.8% projected for 2006 when those numbers come out, and the smallest boost since the 2001. TNS predicts more money will shift from the top 100 marketers as smaller brands with smaller budgets can get a piece of a fragmenting market.

Syndicated TV ad revenue is expected to be up 6.6% in 2007 and to increase its share from 2.8% to 2.9% of total ad revenue. That 6.6% is the best percentage rise behind Internet display advertising's 13.4% boost. Internet's share of the total revenue pie is predicted to rise from 6.5% to 7.2%.

Cable ad revenues are expected to be up 4.7% over 2006, and its share to increase from 11.7% to 11.9%.
Network TV revenues are expected to be up only .6% and its share to drop from a still TV category-leading 15.5% to 15.2%.

Spot TV revenues are expected to be down 0.9% from 2006 and will certainly be impacted by the lack of the Olympic games and  political dollars.

Ad revenues for all Spanish language media--both print and broadcast--are predicted to be up 5.4%, and to increase their share slightly from 3.2% to 3.3% of the ad pie.

The second half of the year is predicted to see the largest gain at 3.2%, after a sluggish first half at 2.1%.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.