AD BUYERS DEFY LATEST ECONOMIC DOWNTURN

Recent news reports about the current state of the economy may appear dire, but a report from Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang suggests that advertisers are paying little attention. Wang indicates that few ad buyers are attempting to pull out of deals they made during the upfront period, or, as he put it, there has been “little apparent breakage so far.” Moreover, he said, ad rates in the current “scatter” market — when buyers make more or less individual ad buys, instead of package deals for the season — are up 10-25 percent for the broadcast networks over the upfront pace and 5-12 percent for cable. As reported by Media Post‘s online MediaDailyNews, Wang is holding to his prediction of 2 percent growth for the ad market this year.