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Merry Michael thanks his retail friends

Posted in General, Media, Branwell Johnson, Latest reporters' blogs March 5th, 2008 by Branwell Johnson

Michael Grade was his charismatic showboating self at this week’s presentation of ITV’s full year results, even alluding to “sucking a fisherman’s friend” to ribald laughter. And he had reason to be merry with ad revenues staying flat rather than sliding.

However, it’s interesting to see which sectors have actually boosted their ad spend across ITV’s family of channels and which have drawn in their horns. Retail helped save ITV’s bacon by boosting spend 11 per cent over the year to £283.8 million and Publishing & Broadcasting invested by an extra 9.2 per cent to £56.8 million.

Unsurprisingly, ad spend from the finance sector was down – by 13.3 per cent to £135.2 million – as the industry feels the bite of the credit crunch and mortgage applications fall off. Also indicating an ebbing of consumer confidence Entertainment & Leisure dropped 4.1 per cent to £129 million and Cars & Car Dealers slipped 6.1 per cent to £109.8 million.

But it’s Food that’s baffling me as spend fell 12.5 per cent to £140.3 million. There were various scares over the year, such as avian flu, and I know the price of milk and wheat is rising but I’m still stuck for a reason as to why this sector dropped so heavily. Any suggestions welcome.