"Net investments have not gone down, but up. This discrepancy comes from a lack of correlation between rate card prices and net ones. For television, rate card is no longer a sales tool as over 90% of clients are buying depending on the audience," explains Ciprian Stancu, sales manager of Pro TV, which owns the Pro TV, Acasa TV, Sport.ro, Pro Cinema, Pro TV International channels and the MTV licence for the domestic market.
Stancu expects TV investments to go up 30-35% in 2008 year-on-year, when they stood at some 270 million euros.
The market leader, Pro TV saw turnover reach 137.83 million dollars (88.9 million euros) in the first half, up 50% in dollars compared with the same time in 2007.
Despite gross figures showing a decline in investments by the major three advertisers - P&G, Unilever and L'Oreal, Ciprian Stancu and Marian Petcu, a communication manager of Starcom media agency, say net investments by the three have remained relatively constant since last year, or posted slight increases.
While in the United States and Western Europe recession is frequently mentioned, on the domestic advertising market there are divergent opinions over a possible reduction of marketing budgets.
In June, however, the rate card budgets of the top three advertisers dropped, with P&G landing on the fourth position and Unilever and L'Oreal exited the top ten.
"There are some declines, but it's very difficult to determine where this cooling down in ad investments comes from. Whether it is due to Euro 2008 or to the fact that for very many advertisers the fiscal year ended in June.
Many customers are cautious in May and June and start spending a lot in September and October. In the first half we saw prudence that will be confirmed or disproved in the second half," states Stancu.
Stancu believes foreign market recession will not be felt any earlier than next year.
In 2007, TV ad investments revolved around 270 million euros of the total advertising market, estimated to be worth 500-550 million euros. As a rule, the first half of the year brings around 40% of annual advertising investments, with most budgets being spent in the second half, particularly between October-December when sold-out situations are common. However the question is; will this trend continue this year?
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