Expensive airtime

The Czech economy is dashing along at a 6% rate, but ARBOmedia expects ad spending to be flat this year, at Kč 18bn. It would be the first time in 17 years that ad spending had not risen. Non-media types might interpret this as a leading economic indicator of worse times to come. Consumer lending and real estate are in a bubble, many observers say, and prudent players in these and other markets might be entering a wait- and-see phase. Media experts say, though, that the stagnation in advertising is due almost entirely to the high cost of TV time. As Jaroslav Kovařík of Media Strategy noted in Marketing & Media, TV time in the CR is the most expensive in the region and costs twice as much as in Hungary and Poland. Yesterday might have brought a breakthrough in terms of opening the market to new digital TV players, but by the time this happens, some advertisers both big and small might have lost interest in the Czech market. [Czech Republic TV Nova television magazine]