The View From Out There

The ad market doesn’t look quite as bleak from outside the States, Media Life reports. London-based media agency ZenithOptimedia forecasts worldwide advertising growing by 1.6 percent this year, after an 8.5 percent drop this year.

Of course, this forecast also predicts that North America won’t recover until 2011. Some analysts here had predicted the second half of 2010 or even sooner…

Here, after the jump, are excerpts from MediaLife’s Q&A with ZenithOptimedia’s head of publications Jonathan Barnard. See how he knows we’re bottoming out and whether newspapers can return to their 2007 levels (answer: yes but no!).

You say that there are signs emerging that the downturn is approaching its lowest point. What are those signs?

Advertisers are becoming more willing to commit budgets in advance instead of waiting until the last moment to confirm bookings.

You see a rather bleak future for newspapers. Will this category ever recover to 2007 levels, and why or why not?

Newspapers may well return to 2007 levels globally, since newspapers are still growing and attracting new readers in developing markets.

In North America and Western Europe, however, their ad revenues may well have peaked, at least in real terms.

You say the “return to growth in 2010 and 2011 will bring no end to the pain of many big media owners.” Why? Who will hurt the most?

The big media owners are facing ever more intense competition for the scarce resource of consumers’ attention and will continue to lose market share even as the ad market recovers.

In many cases — long-established national broadcasters, traditional publishers, even some websites — the growth of the ad market may not be enough to make up for the loss of market share.

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