1Q ad buys: Read 'em and weep

Overall ad spending in the first quarter fell 0.3 percent, but then you look at the breakouts to see what's really happening. In the misery loves company department, all the newspaper categories are down - local newspapers (-4.6 percent), national newspapers (-5.3 percent) and Spanish-language papers (-1.9 percent). Of the 19 categories measured by TNS Media Intelligence, only six posted gains: outdoor, Spanish-language TV, cable TV, consumer magazines, Spanish-language magazines, and online. Some of the declines are due to tough comparisons with last year's Winter Olympic quarter, but even factoring that out, spending was soft. No. 1 advertiser P&G cut spending by 8.6 percent, and at No. 2 AT&T it was 19.2 percent. Here's a sampler:

·Network TV -7.2%
·Cable TV 6.3%
·Consumer magazines 7.1%
·Newspaper (local) -4.6%
·National newspapers -5.3%
·Internet 16.7%
·Local radio -0.5%
·Outdoor 2.4%

Source: TNS Media Intelligence