Print posts single-digit gain in ad revenue

FILIPINOS still turn to newspapers and magazines for information and entertainment despite the supposed steady migration of readers to the Internet and decades-old dominance of television.

According to the latest media spending data of research firm Nielsen, print continues to hold a five-percent share of the pie in the first half of 2011 at P5.83 billion, just few hundred million pesos higher from P5.47 billion in 2010, an election year.

The figures were based on published rate cards, which exclude the discounts offered by 24 newspapers and 50 magazines monitored.

Jay Bautista, Nielsen managing director, told Sun.Star that the seven-percent gain for print from last year is quite a feat considering that some newspapers across the globe are slowly being eaten up by competition with online media outfits.

Earlier, consumer research company Synovate said the leap of the Filipino reading public to online may not be that fast due to the issue of access.

Only 33 percent of Filipinos are online this year, which is five percentage points below than the Southeast Asian average of 38 percent, Nielsen said in its soon-to-be-released inaugural Southeast Digital Consumer Report.

As a result, print is somewhat here for the long-term given the continuous support of advertisers from banking, finance, telecommunications, automotive industry, among others, Bautista said.

Total ad spots in print declined slightly to 104,000 in the second semester from 109,000 from the same period in 2010.

In the same survey, television ad revenues spiked 21 percent to P96.98 billion from P80.28 billion last year partly due to industry-wide increase of rate cards.

"A factor in the growth is the increase in rate cards and an increase in ad minutes. Rate cards rose by an average of 15 percent from last year," Nielsen client services director Eric Barrera told reporters.

On the other hand, radio attracted P22.31 billion (down two percent) of the total P125.13 billion ad expenses in the past six months.

Among the top products being advertised during the monitoring period are personal care, food, beverage, pharmaceuticals and home care products.

Rankings of lead advertisers, meanwhile, barely changed.

Unilever Philippines Inc. is still on top of the heap, which spent P18.81 billion in the first semester of 2011, up 33 percent year-on-year from P14.12 billion.

Rounding up the top five are Procter and Gamble Philippines, Inc. (P14.36 billion); Nestle Philippines, Inc. (P10.18 billion); United Laboratories, Inc. (P6.73 billion) and Colgate-Palmolive Philippines, Inc. (P4.94 billion). (Sunnex)