Ad market drops nearly 10% following 2016 federal election, according to SMI numbers
The impact of election spending ahead of the 2016 federal vote has led to a near double-digit fall in year-on-year agency bookings for May 2017, with a 9.7% decline in adspend compared to the previous year.
Overall top-line spending through agencies declined to $589.5m with the Standard Media Index warning that a series of one-off factors, including the the long weekend impacting when agencies can retrospectively pay for May digital campaigns, had further skewed the numbers.
Newspapers continued to shed revenue, with the sector down 29% excluding digital and late bookings, while cinema dropped 20.7%.