Ad recession is coming

Or so says Henry Blodget writing in Silicon Valley Insider - and quite at odds with the Pollyanna forecast of media honchos like News Corp.'s Peter Chernin and CBS's Les Moonves. "Let me be very clear - we are seeing no signs of a slowdown anywhere in our business," Chernin said at Citi's big media and entertainment conference this week. Of course as Blodget explains, they wouldn't be seeing any signs of a slowdown - not yet anyway. Advertising cuts typically lag the first signs of a recession - often by six months or more.

This is certainly what happened in the last recession (although for some sectors, the falloff happened even faster). The first signs of a slowdown appeared during the summer of 2000--similar to the current situation. Newspaper advertising--to pick a then-healthy media business--was coming off strong year and a solid Q4, but in Q1 of 2001, when the contraction officially started, it promptly plummeted 4%. Even though the contraction officially ended after 8 months, moreover, (per NBER) newspaper advertising continued to decline until nearly a year later, in Q2 2002. This will be important to remember as we go through the period where everyone starts trying to call the bottom.