How big is the recovery from the pandemic-impacted month of January 2021, with respect to ad spend?
According to Standard Media Index (SMI), ad spend in the first month of 2022 surpassed that of 2021 by $1.1 billion, hitting a new record high for the month.
How did Radio, in particular, perform? Quite good, SMI finds.
Some 19% year-over-year growth was seen.
January 2022 ad spend grew 19% year-over-year, according to SMI, which bases its research on actual invoicing data from all major holding companies and most major independents, representing 95% of national brand ad spend.
Likely to the surprise of no one, digital investment led the push for growth across all channels, attracting the lion’s share of incremental dollars. In fact, digital remained the only channel with double-digit quarterly increases versus the prior year, going back to Q4 2020.
How did Radio perform? While it was barely mentioned by SMI, media investment in Radio is up 21% year-over-year.
SMI also offers a comparison to January 2020, and that’s a bit more sobering. Radio is down 17% from the first month of 2020, when COVID-19 was barely known and was a minor tale at NATPE Miami, the last major industry in-person conference to be staged since the pandemic’s March 2020 start in the U.S.
Comparatively, Television is flat compared to January 2020, and up 9% year-over-year in January 2022.
SMI notes that Broadcast TV (+19%) offset a “modest” 3% Cable TV decline.
Meanwhile, OOH neared peak levels for the month of January 2022, and that was not seen since 2017.
As shown above, reiterating radio broadcasting companies’ Q3 2021 earnings reports, Automotive was the only category to experience a reduction in ad revenue, falling 7% versus January 2021.
From a year-over-year perspective, the sector has reduced monthly ad spend since August 2021, amid publicly noted supply side challenges. This has particularly bruised Audacy Corp., which compared to its peers is overexposed in the Automotive category.
