Advertising spend as measured by media agency bookings dropped 6.8% in May but came in flat when adjusting for disappearing political commercials.
The SMI (Standard Media Index), removing the impact of last year’s federal election and COVID-related spend, reported underlying market growth of 0.1% in May.
The data includes a $41.2 million fall in political party category ad spend and a $12.4 million hit from government.
Television is down 15.3%, or 3.5% adjusting for government spend.
"SMI’s data quantifies the size of the abnormal impact the extra spending within these categories has had on our market, propelling it to record levels of ad spend last year but now creating a $153 million hole in ad spend since January which is affecting all major media," says SMI AU/NZ managing director Jane Ractliffe.
"From a headline perspective, it changes a decline in calendar year-to-date ad demand from -4.2% to growth of 0.4% once the ad spend for those categories is removed."
SMI’s forward pacings data for June shows 87% of the value of last year’s monthly ad spend is already confirmed (ex digital).
"That’s back to levels we would normally expect to see in a growth market," says Ractliffe.
Ractliffe said the impact of Government and Political Party ad spend was clearly evident when comparing the headline and underlying growth rates for most major media.
Ad demand for both radio and magazines returns to growth when government and political party categories are removed.
"These are huge swings that prove underlying ad demand remains stable for most media,’’ Ractliffe says.
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