What you need to know:

• SMI have released their ad spend numbers for August, showing a 0.9 per cent drop in ad spend yearon-year. There was a 6.2 per cent rise when discounting media affected by the Tokyo Olympics.
• Television and Digital video dropped 11.3 per cent and 23.5 per cent respectively.
• Outdoor media rose 34.1 per cent, while cinema jumped 176.3 per cent.

Australia’s media agency-funded advertising market fell by 0.9 per cent in August year-on-year but is proving to be “resilient”, rising 6.2 per cent when the Tokyo Olympics are removed from calculations.

The latest Standard Media Index (SMI) figures show a $5.9 million decline in spend in August but, taking away Metropolitan TV and their broadcast video on demand (BVOD) platforms, the market grew.

Television dropped 11.3 per cent year-on-year, while digital video dropped 23.5 per cent.

Outdoor media jumped 34.1 per cent to a record for the month, while Cinema also jumped 176 per cent. It’s important to note both Sydney and Melbourne were in deep restrictions in August last year.

Radio rose 2.1 per cent, print newspaper spend fell 24.6 per cent – also due to the Olympics, SMI said, and News Media’s online revenues rose 19.6 per cent.

The market is 13.4 per cent above its pre-Covid total in August 2019.

The Tokyo Olympics ran from July 23 to August 8, which SMI noted were “mostly” the reason why television ad spend dropped so significantly year-on-year.

“The Australian ad market is proving itself to be incredibly resilient given concerns about inflationary pressures and growing interest rates,” SMI AU/NZ Managing Director Jane Ractliffe said.

“We can clearly see that ad demand will also be higher in September as the ad revenues collected last week show the market total is already just 1.1 per cent below that achieved in September 2021, and that’s also excluding all Digital ad spend which will further propel market growth.’’