The ad spend canary is riding high on metro television.
Free-to-air television advertising, as measured by media agency bookings, was higher in December 2021 than the same month in 2019, pre-Covid.
Early numbers from the Standard Media Index (SMI), released to subscribers but not yet public, show a 6.6% rise in December compared to 2020 and 17% up on December 2019.
For the six months to December, the rise was 13% higher than the same half year in 2019.
In December 2021, the strongest advertisers, without adding late digital bookings, were government, financial services and insurance.
Automotive, which has supply chain issues, was weaker.
In 2022, the industry will get a kick along with a federal election ahead, probably in May. The big unknown is the impact on consumer confidence from the Omicron variant.
Nine Entertainment, giving a trading update to shareholders at its annual general meeting in November, described a "robust" advertising market continuing.
CEO Mike Sneesby: "We're very happy with how things have opened up for the first calendar quarter.”
Also in November, Seven West Media was confident the company would exceed analysts’ consensus forecast for full year EBITDA of about $260 million by between 7% and 10%, excluding any benefits from the acquisition of Prime.
Seven West Media reported a 240% increase to $125.5 million in underlying net profit after tax for the year to June. Statutory net profit after income tax was $318 million on group revenue of $1.276 billion, up 3.5% on the previous year.
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