Commercial television battled declining advertising revenues in the second half of 2008, with metropolitan broadcasters dropping more than 5.3% of their revenue overall compared to the same period last year.
Total revenues across the whole metropolitan and regional TV markets were down by more than 4.4% to $1.96bn, according to Free TV Australia figures.
But it was Perth’s metropolitan free-to-air networks that felt the brunt of the slowing economy, dropping more than 6.56% of ad revenue in the period. That was closely tailed by Brisbane and Sydney’s metro networks, which lost 6.06% and 5.79% respectively.
Melbourne’s share of metropolitan revenue slipped 4.29% while Adelaide’s share dropped 3.38% in the period ending December 2008.
Revenues in the regional TV market came in at $449.6m, with significant losses in South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia, down 3.48%, 2.35% and 2.18% respectively.
With the exception of Queensland, which grew its share by less than half a percent, all regional revenues were down in the period.
The Seven Network is still taking the biggest slice of the TV ad pie, with 41.38% of the market. Nine secured 30.87% of revenues, while Ten took 27.74% share.
New South Wales still has the lion’s share of TV revenues at $761.0m, followed by Victoria $484.95m, Queensland $370.08m, Western Australia $175.39m, South Australia $128.34m and Northern Territory/Tasmania at $37.89m.
