Three of the nation's five big broadcast networks showed year-over-year declines in 2008 ad revenue, according to TNS Media Intelligence, a sign that one of the media industry's most stable venues continues to struggle in an extremely challenging and changing economic and media landscape.
In 2008, only News Corp.'s Fox and General Electric's NBC mustered gains in ad sales, and one analyst suggested the two networks may have benefited from broadcasting either the Olympics (NBC) or the Super Bowl (Fox) in that year. "In general, it was a disastrous year for most advertising-based media," said Marci Ryvicker, a media-industry analyst for Wachovia Capital Markets.
TNS says only NBC and FOX had ad sales gains in 2008; Chalk that up to the Olympics and Super Bowl?
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Not wanting to get all persnickety with Advertising Age’s doom & gloom headline, but the sixth network, MyNetworkTV, actually showed year-over-year increases in their ad billings last year, growing from $87.2 million in 2007 to $91.6 million in 2008 (which included only 3 months of ‘WWE Smackdown’).
Wasn’t the Superbowl on NBC…?
Westwick1; this info was for calendar year 2008, when the Super Bowl was on FOX. NBC had the Super Bowl in 2009.
Dumont, how much of the growth would for MNT would you attribute to the quarter of Smackdown?
Couldn’t all of this gain be due solely to the presidential election which flooded the networks with advertising? If so, that only happens every four years.