Read This Week's Jack Myers Media Business Report:
National TV Syndicators Hold Back Inventory from Strong Market
The national advertising marketplace is comprised of three sectors: broadcast networks, cable networks and syndication. There are, of course, sub-sectors within these groupings such as branded entertainment, cinema, place-based video and the emerging online video business. And spot/local television (broadcast and cable) represents a significant chunk of total TV ad investments. Fundamentally, however, network TV and syndication represent the vast proportion of marketers' national TV ad spending and, therefore, dominate the attention of traditional media agencies. Jack Myers Media Business Report projects 2010 ad investments in national television will total $40.6 billion, more than 22% of total U.S. ad spending. In 2006, the first year I included online advertising in my annual advertising investment data, total network + syndication television advertising represented only a 17.4% share of the total ad marketplace. Even as digital ad investments (including search) have increased from $14.7 billion in 2006 to a projected $23.5 billion in 2010, national television ad spending has grown from $38.5 billion to a projected $40.6 billion. Add in revenues generated by local broadcast stations and cable systems, the TV ad market is $66.8 billion.
While digital media are the favorites of investors and trade press pundits, the fundamental vitality of the traditional media marketplace should not be overlooked. It's this strong foundation upon which emerging media is being built and as the digital ad marketplace continues to grow, many traditional media – and especially television – will become the beneficiaries, not the market losers.
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