06-11-2009
SPRINT HAS NATION'S BIGGEST AD INCREASE
    The Wall Street Journal is reporting (6/11) that overall ad spending fell 14% in the first quarter, making it the worst quarter for advertising in more than a decade.  
    However, while major firms slashed their ad budgets significantly, Kansas City-based Sprint Nextel bucked the trend by recording the biggest ad increase of any business in the nation in the quarter. 
   Sprint--the nation's seventh largest advertiser---increased its ad spending by 30% over the same period compared to 2008 to edge out Johnson & Johnson, which increased its spending 29%.
   Time-Warner ad spending was down 24% and GM 19%.  The nation's largest advertiser Procter & Gamble cut its ad spending by 18%.

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U.S. Ad Spending Fell 14% in First Quarter
By SUZANNE VRANICA
   U.S. ad spending on media such as TV, print and online display ads fell 14% to $30.18 billion in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to TNS Media Intelligence, despite guardedly optimistic talk in recent weeks about a bottoming out in the market.
   The numbers, which exclude categories such as online-search ads and in-store ads, suggest that the ad downturn is far more pronounced than many expected. "We are now in the record books with the worst quarter in a decade," said Jon Swallen, TNS's senior vice president of research.
    Link to rest of story: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB124467774162404243,00.html?mod=djempersonal