New York—U.S. advertising spending increased to $32.9 billion in the first quarter, a 2.6% gain compared with the year-earlier period, according to Kantar Media.
Television advertising posted strong overall growth, with a 7.6% gain for the quarter, according to Kantar. Sports programming, particularly National Football League and NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament telecasts, contributed to the 7.4% gain in cable TV spending and the 7.0% gain in network TV spending. Magazine media disappointed once again, falling 3.6% in the first quarter. B2b magazines fell 1.0%.
Separately, WARC, a marketing intelligence service, projected that global ad spending will increase 4.8% this year compared with last year. The gains will come despite weakness in Europe due to strong spending in the U.S., which will be buoyed by election year and Olympic advertising.
WARC projected that spending in the U.S. will increase 4.1% this year. At the same time, European countries will exhibit meager growth or declines, with advertising in France expected to increase 0.6% and in Germany by 0.5%, while Italy is anticipated to post a decline of 3.6%.
Emerging markets, such as China (up 15.5%), Russia (up 14.0%), India (up 9.3%) and Brazil (up 8.9%) are projected to post strong advertising growth this year.
