Media Sales Today

Social media was a hot topic during last week’s panel discussion of Columbus, Ohio broadcast TV leadership. Integration of social media, as well as mobile devices, are two of the methods local stations are using to bring audiences back to their websites and their channels on the bigger screen.

Whether it is through a television screen or a smartphone app, panelists voiced the importance of connecting with the community during the a panel discussion of Columbus, Ohio broadcast TV leadership last Friday.

A Wall Street Journal report this week predicts national spending on cable advertising will end the year up 12%. While questions remain about the stability of the economy overall, analysts still expect overall growth in the U.S. ad market to be 2% for the year.

In December 2010, nearly 95 percent of advertising sales managers projected increased ad revenue in 2011, but a new study shows 76 percent now anticipate increases, and with much lower overall expectations. According to the mid-year update of the AdMall 2011 Local Advertising Sales Forecast, just 1.5 percent of these ad managers anticipated a decline in sales coming into the year, now 16.1 percent project lower numbers.

Just released numbers show that for first quarter 2011 the overall U.S. ad economy grew 4.4 percent. While that is a slower pace than in previous quarters, it’s still good news. See the first quarter numbers by media type.

The latest advertising spending forecast shows an expected overall increase in U.S. advertising dollars of 2.5 percent in 2011. Industries expected to increase spending are financial, retail and automotive. While an increase of any size is welcome after the past few years, this latest report predicts it will be several years before spending returns to pre-recession levels.

Expectations are up for cable advertising budgets, with about 30 percent of ad executives expecting increased budgets on top cable networks in the next twelve months. That number is up from 21 percent last year.