TV adspend recovery remains four years off.(Brief Article)

Television's share of UK advertising spend is not expected to recover to the peak levels hit in 1999 within the next four years, according to the latest research from the media planning and buying agency OMD UK.

Having hit a high of 43.6 per cent in 1999, TV's share of the total advertising expenditure dropped to 42.5 per cent in 2000 and has slumped even further to an estimated low of 40.6 per cent this year.

And TV advertising spend is predicted to fall to 3.1 billion [pounds sterling] by the end of 2001 from 3.3 billion [pounds sterling] in 2000, according to a recent report from Zenith Media.

Mark Palmer, the managing partner at OMD, said: "This is our forecast based on numerical analysis. A lot depends on what the TV market does with its product and its brand. It can no longer afford to be complacent."

ITV has been particularly hard hit and OMD estimates that its revenue will be down by 13.5 per cent year on year in 2001/2000. The TV buying director at OMD, Jonathan Allan, said: "To put this decline into perspective, the last recession in 1990 saw zero growth and 1991 fell only 1.6 per cent year on year. To say this fall is `off-trend' is to put it mildly."

TV's share of the total advertising spend is expected to start creeping up in 2002 to 41 per cent, reaching 1993 levels at 42.2 per cent by 2005, according to OMD.

Allan said: "Television's share of total advertising expenditure has been ...