The Wall Street Journal today reports low 3rd quarter ad sales for the national TV markets, specifically for Viacom (which projected a 3 percent loss for Q3) and CBS (predicted a jump from 14 to 18 percent down over Q3 2007).

"The disclosures come as ad executives are seeing more cuts in already-soft ad spending, as a result of the upheaval in global financial markets. 'We see reductions coming from all sectors,' said Maurice Levy, chief executive of Publicis Groupe SA, one of the world's largest ad-holding companies."

As a result, many of the holding companies are withholding their Q3 reports. No big surprise there, since local TV ad sales are down 4.4 percent over Q1/Q2 of this year. Sigh. Pair that with another WSJ story that indicates large ad-holding companies are tightening up in other areas as well, most importantly to you, personnel. Omnicom, Starcom MediaVest and Landor are mentioned, but look locally and you'll see a higher propensity of the same behavior in smaller markets.

Click "continued" to read on.

Chart Source

More: "Say Bye-Bye: The Freelancer Crunch"

With the Beijing Olympics long gone, dismal automotive and financial markets and a still untapped source for revenue online, the time for innovation is upon us. It should be no surprise that these cutbacks were coming, and its up to the industry as a whole to power through and invent something clients can't deny.

For those of you whose time is devoted to buying ad space in the broadcast sector, we want to hear back. Are you picking up the phone less or haggling over prices more? Given the financial market, we expected to see retrenchment back into traditional media, but today's report indicates otherwise.

Could our hopes that ad-spends are being re-focused on the digital space be coming true? A spy can dream, can't he? We'll have more on the retrenchment into TV, later today. But for now, leave your comments below (and answer the poll), in response to this question: Which medium is most cost-effective in terms of breadth, ROI, and actual relationship development?