The Paris Olympics has sparked a surge in advertising spend for July 2024, with host broadcaster Nine Entertainment reaping the benefits in what was an otherwise soft advertising market for the month of July.

According to the latest Guideline SMI figures, total bookings down 7.8% from last year's record level of July ad spend. Guideline's calendar year-to-date results show total demand back just 1.5%, with Outdoor showing the largest gain of 5.1%, followed by Cinema (+3.9% YOY) and Digital (+3.6%).

"The strength of Nine’s Olympics broadcast and the success of so many Australians at the Games has clearly moved an abnormal amount of revenue to the Nine group in July, and with more Olympic broadcast days falling in August that trend will continue next month," said Guideline SMI APAC Managing Director, Jane Ractliffe. "At the same time it seems advertisers not associated with the Olympics have decided to reduce their media investment and that’s led to another month of lower bookings."

In the month of July, all major media reported lower ad spend, with the exception of Audio media, which saw a marginal growth of 0.1% when Linear and Digital Radio revenues are combined.

The Government category stood out in July with a 61.2% increase in ad bookings, with Linear TV gaining the largest share of that ad spend. Retail advertisers and Automotive Brand demand also saw growth in July, up 12.4% and 5.8% respectively. However, these gains were offset by large declines in ad demand from the Communications and Media categories.

"We can see there is a two-speed ad market developing as the product categories delivering growth are growing that media investment in the high double-digit range, and that’s meant that on a combined basis the largest growth categories have lifted revenues 9.8% this month – way outpacing the broader market," Ractliffe said.