Fewer ad executives said they expect to spend more on the average cable network over the next 12 months compared to a year ago, according to a survey by Beta Research.
Only 15% anticipated spending more, compared to 27% a year ago.
In this year’s survey, 13% of ad executives said their spending would decrease a little and 6% said spending would drop a lot. Another 60% said they expected spending to remain the same.
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Because of the coronavirus, Beta changed the wording of its study. In previous surveys it asked ad execs if they planned to increase spending only.
Among cable networks, the one the most ad execs said they would spend more on was HGTV, with 36%. Last year, 50% of ad execs said they would be spending more with HGTV and 53% said they would hike spending on ESPN, the highest scoring network.
Among the networks with the highest share of ad execs planning to spend more on them, Discovery had three, with HGTV, Food Network and Discovery Channel, as did AT&T’s WarnerMedia with CNN, TBS and TNT.
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NBCU had two networks, Bravo and MSNBC.
The other networks on the list were Disney’s ESPN, ViacomCBS’s BET and Fox’s Fox News.
The broadcast networks averaged 22% of ad execs saying they’d be spending more on them, which would have placed them in the second half of the top 10.
Advertising executives gave Discovery and WarnerMedia the highest marks for being helpful and flexible in dealing with the business impact of the Coronavirus.
NBCU got the highest grade for providing creative and innovative multi-platform opportunities, followed by Disney Ad Sales
The study was conducted between August and November, with 176 advertising media executives doing telephone interviews with Beta.
