Hot off the heels of media spend figures which show a decline of 6.2% in overall news media ad spend, NewsMediaWorks CEO Peter Miller has again taken a jab at the "ropey long tail of the web and the even ropier social channels".
With the latest figures from the News Media Index (NMI) finding that digital news media revenues outpace the overall market, Miller said it was clear advertisers were supporting their brands by advertising in trusted, authentic, reliable news environments - rather than throwing hard won budgets at companies like Facebook or Google.
Unlike the monthly SMI data which reports agency only revenue, the quarterly NMI reports all print and digital ad revenue to Australia’s largest news media publishers from both agencies and direct advertisers and is independently verified by SMI.
"I think what we are seeing here is the result of a reappraisal by advertisers and their agencies, and a return flight to quality," Miller says.
Decline in the news media sector is slowing with figures for the December 2018 quarter showing Metropolitan Press reporting a single digit decline and the total sector remaining stable.
The NMI, with data collated by Standard Media Index, showed total news media advertising expenditure declined by -6.2% to $487.2 million in the final quarter of 2018. Metro press, which accounts for almost one third (31.9%) of ad spend, reported -3.2% in the December quarter to $155.36 million.
For the 2018 calendar year, the NMI shows ad spend to be back by -6% to $1.89 billion, while for the December quarter the total was back -6.2%. This is largely the result of the difficult ad market conditions experienced by the overall media sector in October and November with the same sex marriage plebiscite driving ad spend in 2017.
According to SMI’s media agency-only data for the month of December, total news media ad spend was back -4.7%, a larger decline than the NMI figures, which also include spend from direct advertisers. The NMI showed that Metro Press, however, grew ad spend +1.2% in December.
Miller says the News Media Index figures are good news for the industry, with an improvement in the fortunes of authentic news media becoming a trend.
“Once again we have seen low single digit negative growth in news media advertising expenditure of -6.2%, built on the strong performance of the big metropolitan titles, the core of the sector’s business, which were back only -3.2%," he says.
SMI AU/NZ managing director Jane Ractliff says Australia’s news media industry is arguably the "new growth engine" within digital media with ad spend to news media’s digital assets outpacing that of the broader agency market.
“When comparing the agency-only SMI data to the NMI data we can see that advertisers are growing their digital investment to news media websites at a far faster pace than that of the broader digital market," Ractliff says.
Digital ad spend in the NMI grew 21.4% in December but SMI’s agency data for the same period shows digital spending back 4.6%.
In Q4 NMI digital ad spend was up 6% while in the SMI agency data total digital spend was back 0.8%.
For the full calendar year, NMI digital ad spend has grown 8.7% while in the SMI data it’s up a lesser 5.8%.’’
Direct ad spend now accounts for 56% of all news media advertising, again highlighting the difference between agency and direct ad revenue, although the media agency sector continues to improve.
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