Ad spending for the first half of 2005 rose 5.7% over the same period last year, due to gains across major media, according to figures released by Nielsen Monitor-Plus (see TV News for the basic numbers). Also from the report: There were 15,798 different creatives used on national television in the first half of the year, airing over 4.8 million times, and accounting for 25.4 million. Each creative aired an average of 307 times. The large majority of the commercials were placed on cable television; however, the most money was garnered from the broadcast networks, representing only 7 networks, with 240,758 spots.

PeoplePC, an Internet Service Provider, ran its creative the most times, totaling 12,662 airings. The 60-second spot features animated stick figures promoting the company's 10.95 service. PeoplePC was the second largest advertiser in this category, spending 90.3 million across national TV.

Nielsen's Product Placement tracking service continues to show significant growth in the integration of product occurrences in primetime broadcast network programming. The top 10 brands in the product placement category totaled 11,455 occurrences in the first half of the year.

The top 10 programs that featured product placements in the first quarter accounted for 23,518 occurrences. The Contender was the number one program, with more than double the amount of product placements than the number two program, American Idol, 7,521 and 3,497, respectively. Many of The Contender's placements were for Everlast Apparel and Sporting Equipment.

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