Gulp. Ad Spend Down by 1.4 Percent

(MoneyWatch)  As our pal The Founder has it over at Tribble, it's time to sharpen those resumes. Besides an unending cavalcade of economic bad news, Nielsen put out its first half advertising numbers, and it's not pretty. Overall ad spend was down 1.4 percent to $67.6 billion year over year.

Unsurprisingly, cable television with its cheapo inventory continues to make gains. The real drag on ad spend seems to the automotive industry, which continues its frightening free fall. Automotive ad spend was down by eight percent overall. Online publishers and ad agencies counting on GM shifting half their ad spend online may have a lot less to fight over.

As George Parker of AdScam cheerfully put its in his post, "We're all fucked now!":

I don't want to be a miserable old fuck here... But the whole ad biz is poised on the edge of a giant fucking precipice. 'Cos, as we all know, when Corporate America is "feeling the pain" and needs to improve the bottom line, the first place they look for slash and burn, is the ad budget. That's the way it's always been, that's the way it will always be. And don't give me that shit about it not affecting digital and other so-called new media spending. It will fucking affect EVERYTHING.

Ad Week, writing about the numbers, seems to agree with George, thought without all the blue language, noting that Magna and Zenith's very, very low forecasts of upcoming ad rising by 2 and 3.5 percent respectively may not have been gloomy enough. Some are saying that these are actually too high, and 2009 will see ad spending actually decline.