If the previous pages have had a dose of bad news, then these pages are full of worse news. If the severe deceleration in ad spends that began in November and December 2008, which got only accelerated in the first few weeks of 2009, is any indication, then the immediate prospects of the advertising and media industry look really bleak. In fact, the 2009 horizon is full of dark clouds. And this comes after an uninterrupted ride on the growth highway for three successive years!

The Pitch-Madison Media Advertising Outlook 2009 foresees a paltry two percent growth in the 2009 calendar year. In other words, practically we see little growth at all in the year ahead as far as advertising expenditure is concerned. And this bad forecast is emerging from our detailed analysis of the media numbers, and inputs from close to 50 top CMOs, and advertising and media professionals.

The Survey pegs the media and advertising industry size at Rs 21,199 crore in 2009, a tad over what it grossed in the previous year at Rs 20,717 crore.

Among the different media formats, we see television, the Internet, and radio growing, albeit at much lower levels than in the past three years. Print spends, at best, would be stagnant vis-à-vis 2008, while cinema and outdoor would decline in absolute spends. While it would be zero growth for the print sector which had been on a raucous growth path for some years now, television is expected to manage a growth rate of just seven percent, thanks to the consumer goods sector, which so far has not been hit by the slowdown. While the big brother print media grew at a healthy 16 percent at Rs 9,825 crore in 2008, the seven percent growth for the television space is way below the 17-percent growth it achieved in 2008. In fact, this is a significant decline vis-à-vis past three-four years, when it grew over 20 percent.

In 2009, television spends will be primarily driven by consumer goods players-the foundations of television advertising-who would continue to spend, and would grow by around 16-17 percent. But a significant number of other sectors, notably, durables, auto, banking, corporate brand building, IPOs, and retail would decline. Also telecom and DTH are likely to spend less, leading to the overall slow growth.

The major reasons for the flat growth of the print media are following the slowdown, the critical print spenders like automobiles, realty, banking, durables, corporate advertising, IPOs, retail etc would cut down on their spends. These sectors represent more than 35 percent of the print spends. As mentioned earlier, one has already been sensing the slack in these sectors since last November. While certain other sectors such as education, insurance, and consumer goods would grow. The impact of these declines would be so hard that even the heavy election advertising for the forthcoming hustings is unlikely to offset the degrowth in the sectors mentioned above. Hence, zero growth for the medium in 2009.

Also, along with this de-growth, print media is also expected to see a shrinkage in its overall share in the national ad pie-from 47.4 to 46.3 percent, yet maintaining its lead position in the overall ad spends sweepstakes. But television will see a major boost in its overall ad pie share-from 40.2 percent in 2008 to 42 percent in 2009.

While the Internet and radio media which will grow at 25 percent and 15 percent respectively, would be the main saving grace of the year, outdoor and cinema will be the worst disappointments. It can be noted that both the digital media and radio had red-hot growth rates of 45 percent and 38 percent in the past year. The Survey pegs the size of these media formats at Rs 762 crore and Rs 453 crore, respectively in 2009. Accordingly, we see minor improvements in their overall share in the ad pie too at 3.6 percent which is up from 3.2 percent, and 2.1 percent, up from 1.7 percent, respectively in 2009.

The reasons for a reasonable growth of radio include opening of new stations, providing localised advertising options for advertisers, advertisers' increasing confidence on the medium both from executional and operational perspectives, its ability to localise advertising which help advertisers do concentrated bursts with limited outlays etc. Hence, while the core sectors of radio which are similar to print would decline, the medium overall would continue to grow.

Similarly, the Internet would continue to grow in spends, as in the times of slowdown marketers would look for cost-efficiency coupled with measurability. Hence, while the core sectors of the digital spenders include those of print, one senses that the spends on this medium are not likely to fall as this medium demands only lower outlays vis-à-vis other media formats Also, the reach of the Internet is only bound to grow over the next twelve months, adding to its popularity and reach.

The third largest medium outdoor will register a massive negative growth of 20 percent-a steep fall from Rs 1,419 crore it had grossed in 2008 to Rs 1,135 crore in ad revenue earnings and its share from 6.8 to 5.4 percent in 2009. The reason for this very poor performance is that it has been reeling under lower demand over since October, and Mumbai, which accounts for a significant proportion of outdoor spends, has been adversely affected.

In case of cinema, we see a negative five percent growth in spends vis-à-vis 2008. It is likely that the non-measurability of cinema spends is going to be counter-productive. Advertisers are likely to place safer bets on their spending in bad times. The decline in multiplex footfalls will also be a big turn-off leading to lower spends.