Aside from a blip caused by war uncertainty in March this year, UK advertising has shown year on year growth in every single month since May 2002, according to data from Nielsen Media Research.
Across the period, overall media spend rose by 3.8%, with television leading the way on 8.2% growth. Press remains the weakest sector and was the only medium to show negative growth in the twelve months to April 2003 (down by 1.0%). Within this, magazines dropped 2.5%, national newspapers fell by 0.9% and regionals rose by 1.7%.
March 2003 was the only month in the last twelve to show a year on year decline, falling by 1.2%. This can be attributed to a combination of the uncertainty in the run-up to war in Iraq and the fact that Easter fell in March last year, but in April this year.
Nielsen says that total media expenditure grew by £300 million in the year to April and that this will be “widely interpreted as a sure sign that a recovery in media has begun.” This assessment seems to fly in the face of much recent commentary which has claimed that conditions remain weak, with real recovery not expected until 2004.
Perhaps the reason for this apparent contradiction is that growth has been far from consistent. Press revenues, especially in business to business publishing, have remained weak. Radio was in decline for the majority of last year and what overall growth there has been, is not particularly strong given that it is compared to an extremely weak 2001.
As a result, most observers are still reluctant to sound a recovery, expecting instead that things will show more substantial strength into 2004.
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