New York—Third-quarter advertising expenditures totaled $34.5 billion, up 7.1% from the year-earlier period, according to marketing information company Kantar Media. Spending for the first nine months of the year grew 3.8% year-over-year, to $101.3 billion.
Political campaigns and the Summer Olympics dominated the ad market in the third quarter, with TV advertising showing the largest gains. Network TV spending jumped 29.9%, with the London Games generating approximately $1.0 billion for the sector, Kantar said. Spot TV spending grew 19.8% with the expected flood of money from political ads. Spanish-language TV budgets increased 17.8%.
However, Internet display advertising fell 4.3% in the third quarter, Kantar said. Spending totals, which do not include video or mobile ad formats, were dragged down by weaker results from midsize websites, the company said. Magazine advertising overall fell 2.9% for the quarter, with b2b magazines dropping 4.2%. National newspaper advertising dropped 17.2% for the quarter.
