National television advertising spending rose 9% in January from a year ago, according to new data from Standard Media Index.
The January gain left TV spending up 0.1% from January 2020, months before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in America.
SMI said that broadcast TV was up 19%, while cable was down 3%.
The overall advertising market across all media was up 19% in January from a year ago.
As usual, digital was a big gainer, jumping 27% .Over two years, digital spending has increased 43%.
But out-of-home had an even bigger increase at 133% compared to last year. Newspapers were up 40% and radio was up 21%.
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Magazines were down 31%. Over two years, magazine ad revenues have plunged 54%.
The biggest spending advertiser category was tech, up 31%. CPG was up 2% and pharma increased spending by 8%. Autos were down 7%, but retail came back with a 29% bump and travel rebounded with spending climbing 266%.
Standard Media Index gets it spending data from invoices at all of the major media agency holding companies and most major independents, representing 95% of national brand ad spend. ■
