Media ShopTalk: w/c 14 September 2009

A couple of our clients have asked for general media update information – what’s changed, what’s new, what should advertisers be considering for the new year – all in an attempt to assist with 2010 planning. Below are a couple of graphs that have come out of our analyses which we thought you would find of interest with regards to the South African TV scene – January – June 2008 vs 2009.

The above slides clearly shows that the number of TV spots across all stations has decreased dramatically year on year! The greatest drop can be seen when comparing June 2008 vs June 2009 – some 60% drop in the number of classic TV ads having flighted!! This may offer an opportunity for some advertisers as there is definitely less advertising clutter! However when we have a look at expenditure across all stations, due to our monthly rate card system plus the increase in advertising rates, the amount being spent on TV does not mirror the huge decreases in activity! But there is a huge drop off when you consider that when looking at May and June specifically, the TV spend has dropped by just less than R173 million and R160 million respectively!

But echoing what Andy Rice has been saying with regards to the fact that most advertising agencies can confirm that they are able to produce good 30” commercials, the 30” TV commercial is still the most common duration being flighted with more than 50% of ads flighted between January and June 2009 being of this duration.

The shorter durations are however becoming popular but from a cost perspective, they remain at a premium price! One must also take into consideration that the number of programme sponsorships has increased and we all know – when you sponsor a programme one get’s a number of shorter duration opportunities such as squeeze backs, opening and closing billboards etc.

In closing,if nothing else, it’s eye opening and extremely scary! We have easy access to TV information but we don’t have access to most of the other media types. We have to ask the question therefore – are they feeling the pinch as much as TV? And to end, the quote of the week:

"By the end of the decade multi-channel cable television will be commonplace in-home countrywide - TV will be used for armchair shopping, banking,calling emergency services and many
other services"

Kenneth Baker, Minister for Information & Technology, UK, 1982

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