Ad spend has ‘worst [financial] year in living memory’, and dropped 35.7% in June

The 2019/2020 financial year was the “worst year in living memory” for Australia’s media industry, according to newly-released Standard Media Index (SMI) figures.

The media agency-funded ad spend market fell 14.7% for the financial year, due to the compounded effect of the bushfires followed by COVID-19. In the month of June alone, the decline was 35.7% to $417m, an improvement on May’s whopping 40.4% slide, but worse than April’s 35.3% drop.

Those results led to a quarterly decline of 38.7%, and a 24% fall in first half bookings.