- Why Careful Shoppers Are Great for the Box Office
- Black Friday at Best Buy
- Facebook's Biggest-Ever Holiday Shopping Season
- Facebook's New Dual Class Structure - Slow Steps to an IPO
- Can Murdoch Help Bing Challenge Google and Shift the Content Equation?
- Twilight, Inc., A Worldwide Craze
- Oprah to Leave Syndication in 2011
- Sony's E-Reader Shortage and the Digital Book Battle
- Salesforce.com Brings Facebook and Twitter's Social Capabilities to Businesses
- Sumner Redstone's Companies Face Off Yet Again
More Videos
- Why Careful Shoppers Are Great for the Box Office
- Black Friday at Best Buy
- Facebook's Biggest-Ever Holiday Shopping Season
- Facebook's New Dual Class Structure - Slow Steps to an IPO
- Can Murdoch Help Bing Challenge Google and Shift the Content Equation?
- Twilight, Inc., A Worldwide Craze
- Oprah to Leave Syndication in 2011
- Sony's E-Reader Shortage and the Digital Book Battle
- Salesforce.com Brings Facebook and Twitter's Social Capabilities to Businesses
- Sumner Redstone's Companies Face Off Yet Again
RSS FEED
MOST SHARED
- Good Sign for the Economy: 'Greed' Makes a Comeback
- Commercial Property Fears Are Overblown: Zell, LeFrak
- Dubai Stocks Could Fall a Further 30%: Charts
- Bank of Japan Offers More Liquidity at Emergency Meeting
- Manufacturing in Focus as Bulls Call for Turn in Dollar
- Dubai Markets Close Sharply Lower for Second Day
- Treasury Threatens Banks, Not Borrowers
- AIG Cuts Debt to Government by $25 Billion; Shares Up
- More Late on Auto Loan Payments in Third Quarter
- Timeless and Time-Tested Warren Buffett Watch Predictions
- Farrell: Forget About Dubai—Worry About This
- How Long Will This Health Care Firm's Rally Last?
- Dubai a 'Wake Up Call'—Expect Volatility Now: Market Pro
- Treasury Threatens Banks, Not Borrowers
- We're Approaching a Market Bubble: Portfolio Manager
- Hershey Shares: What Options Are Saying
- Nov. 30: Unusual Volume Leaders
- Why Careful Shoppers Are Great for the Box Office
- Blue Nile CEO: 'We're Having the Best Cyber Monday Ever'
- Commercial Property Fears Are Overblown: Zell, LeFrak
- Trump: Time to Force Banks to Start Lending
- Accused Fraudster Rothstein Arrested
- More Late on Auto Loan Payments in Third Quarter
- Treasury to Sell 12.7 Million Capital One Warrants
- Contagion Fears Calmed by Dubai World Plan
- AIG Cuts Debt to Government by $25 Billion; Shares Up
- GM Sees China Sales Soar 110% in November
- Good Sign for the Economy: 'Greed' Makes a Comeback
Media Money
Text Size 
The news about the advertising industry seems to get worse every day; just last week I reported that "Upfront" ad sales hadn't started and the overall ad industry is expected to drop 15 percent this year. But one of the nation's biggest advertisers, General Motors [GMGMQ
Loading...
()
], has some good news for the national ad market, which should end up helping local ad spending as well.
Just like a lot of news today, the eye-grabbing headline is the fact that General Motors ad spending won't get any worse. And "less worse" could mean a turnaround for the battered ad industry is coming early next year.
General Motors plans to continue spending $40 million to $50 million a month on advertising through it's restructuring period. This is a huge relief to the TV stations in particular who were concerned it would follow in Chrysler's footsteps and dramatically slash its ads through its restructuring. The fact that GM is holding steady now also inspires hope that the company will ramp up spending later this year once it's through bankruptcy and doing a big push to attract new buyers. Then there's the fact that foreign automakers are likely to buy a lot more ads to steal marketshare from Detroit in this period of weakness.
All in, it adds up to good news for domestic auto ads, which make up about 10 percent of the total ad market, and a bigger piece of sports advertising. Morgan Stanley analyst Ben Swinburne says this should give a boost to Disney's [DIS
Loading...
()
] ESPN, News Corp's [NWS
Loading...
()
] Fox Sports, and CBS' [CBS
Loading...
()
] national ad business.
The part of the ad business that's really been suffering is local advertising, dragged down by the downturn in ads from local auto dealers. Even though steady spending from GM doesn't directly affect this market, Swinburne is optimistic continued national auto spending will drive even local ads over time. It's simple: national ads should drive auto sales, and with higher auto sales come healthier local auto dealers, who in turn, should spend more on ads. The question there is whether they continue with the same media -- newspapers and local TV -- or if they look to Internet-based ads for greater return on investment. And that question is exactly why TV networks are sweating right now.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes