According to the Henley Centre, the average person lost two hours of their leisure time to work between 1992 and 1998, leaving less opportunity for media consumption. Road congestion is getting heavier, meaning more time sat in the car and less at home and when people do sit down in front of the telly or read a magazine they are increasingly likely to be suffering from ‘ad-fatigue’ and to be an ‘ad-avoider’.
‘Active’ media such as television and press require time and attention from the audience; ads that sit in this environment adopt the same attributes and can, to a degree, be avoided and ignored as a result. This, according to outdoor contractor More Group, explains the great advertising success of ‘passive’ media – outdoor and radio – over the last ten years.
Compounding the problem for active media is falling audiences generally. Average weekly television viewing to the terrestrial stations has declined significantly since 1990. Even the rapid increase in viewing to cable, satellite and digital channels has not sufficiently offset the drop, leaving average weekly TV viewing lower last year than in 1991, albeit on an upward trend. National newspaper readership, meanwhile, has shown a 15.7% decline across the ’90s and consumer magazines are currently sailing in choppy waters, with a number of high profile closures in recent months.
It is not surprising then that the outdoor and radio industries have seized the opportunity to convince advertisers that the more passive audiences they serve are still being reached in large volumes. Outdoor and radio are predicted by the Advertising Association (AA) to significantly outperform the advertising sector as whole this year. Outdoor will show a 7.8% revenue growth, whilst radio leads the way with 9.5%. Indexed against the total advertising growth of 3.9%, radio and outdoor more than double the average.
However, not all is currently rosy. Outdoor bookings for May have dropped significantly year on year, according to the latest figures from Concord. Downturn in the US advertising market, prolonged election uncertainty and the foot and mouth epidemic are largely responsible. The lull is expected to continue into June, with both rates and volume of bookings down on the previous year, but should pick up again in July and August.
May’s figures contrast with last year’s period of prosperity, which saw the rising cost of TV advertising push a lot of revenue towards outdoor.
