Metro television ad spend is showing negative when compared to the same month last year, according to early SMI (Standard Media Index) numbers not yet made public.
Aggregated media agency booking data, released to SMI subscribers, indicate metro TV down around 10% for February.
But that is compared to an extra large ad spend in February in 2021 when the Australian Tennis Open was moved from January because of disruption from the pandemic.
In January this year, with the Australian Open Tennis, metro TV advertising grew by 13.5%.
Smoothing out the lumps, January and February taken together are about 6% higher than the same two months in 2020, just befroe the start of the pandemic.
Movie lovers are pushing the cinema category higher, up more than 90% in February.
And soon the advertising sector as a whole will feel the rush of ad spend as a federal election takes hold.
Government spending is already leading the pack, up by more than 50% in February.
Ad spend has been hitting record highs and has supassed pre-pandemic 2019 numbers.
In January, the advertising market was 5.1% higher when measured against January 2019.
And industry insiders forecast the strong run continuing.
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