General Motors, Chrysler Ad Cuts Don't Spell Armageddon for Media

(MoneyWatch)  Ad Age has a far more detailed analysis of how the troubles at General Motors and Chrysler will affect media companies than the one I did last week, and it's worth a read. The magazine surmised, as did I, that the pain many media companies are feeling now isn't as bad as you'd think, mostly because the budgets from GM and Chrysler have been slowly decreasing for some time now. As USA Today's senior vp of advertising, Brett Wilson, puts it: "This would be a very different conversation if everything we had lost in the last five years was being lost in late fourth quarter and right now ... The domestics have been conditioning us for less revenue dependence for a long time."

There's an excellent pdf breaking out how much money Ad Age estimates was taken out of, or put into, individual media companies by GM and Chrysler during 2008. Here are some statistics that jumped out at me:

• GM spent 21.2 percent less with CBS in 2008 than it did in 2007.
• The New York Times received more than 154.4 percent from General Motors in 2008 than 2007, but the auto maker's spending still made up only 1.2 percent of the Times' total ad dollars.
• Chrysler decreased its budget with Fox last year by 28.6 percent.
• ESPN: The Magazine saw its budget form Chrysler decline by 36.4 percent in 2008; the auto maker now makes up 1.7 percent of the magazine's total ad revenue.

Of course, most media properties -- with the possible exception of cable networks -- can ill afford further dropoffs in ad dollars, but, if flat is the new up, not-as-disastrous is the new OK.