Ad spending dries up

As you might imagine, newspapers have been a disaster, with a 5.2 percent drop in revenue for the first nine months of the year. But other ad sectors have taken their lumps as well. All told, advertising expenditures grew just 0.2 percent to $108.2 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Magazine ad revenues were up 4.7 percent, though the number of advertising pages was flat. The biggest slides among the top advertising categories were in domestic automotive (down 9.1 percent) and foreign automotive (down 6.1 percent). Telecom spending fell 4 percent. Next year looks a bit brighter: Robert Coen, Universal McCann’s director of forecasting, says that ad spending in 2008 will grow by 3.7 percent, helped by the elections and the Olympics. (Crain's NY Business)