Advertising spending on media outlets that reach African-American consumers totaled $2.3 billion for the period October 1, 2006 through September 30, 2007, according to the first 12-month analysis of the market by Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
The ad-spend analysis covers over 22,000 national, regional and local advertisers, across 130+ media vehicles; five types of media were tracked: Local Radio, National Magazine, National Cable TV, Network TV and Syndication TV.
The findings reported by Nielsen:
Spending by Medium
 
- Local Radio reported the greatest amount of spending on African-American targeted media at $805 million, comprising 35% percent of total spending.
- National magazines reported more than $600 million in spending, showing healthy revenue across several publications, including Essence magazine. Nielsen Monitor-Plus also added the following publications to its monitoring during this time period: American Legacy, King, Giant and XXL.
- National Cable TV, at $593.1 million, reported the largest ad growth – 14.5% during the period – as a result of year-over-year growth for BET, the inclusion of TV One in the Nielsen Monitor-Plus service as of January 2007, and high profile TV programs such as “House of Payne” on TBS, “Being Bobby Brown” on Bravo, “Flavor of Love” on VH1, and “Making the Band” on MTV.
- Network TV, at $193.3 million, saw a consolidation of UPN and WB into the new CW network. The Top Network TV shows based on total ad revenue are “Girlfriends,” Everybody Hates Chris,” “The Game,” and “All of Us” on the CW, as well as “Watch Over Me” on MNT.
- Syndication TV reported $102.4 million in ad spend for programs that have a 50% or greater composition of African-American audiences, and that’s down year over year. Syndication is made up of a good mix of both established off-network programs such as “The Bernie Mac Show,” “One on One” and “Girlfriends” as well original syndication programming, like “Judge Mathis” and “Showtime at the Apollo.”
Top Advertisers
- For the 12 months October 2006 through September 2007, Procter & Gamble is the largest advertiser targeting African-American consumers with $89.7 million in spend.
- McDonald’s is second with $37.7 million, followed by Johnson and Johnson with $36.1 million. Collectively, the Top 25 Advertisers spent a total of $681.0 million.
- Five auto makers are in the top 25 advertisers across all African-American media: General Motors ($35.8 million), Chrysler ($28.2 million), Ford Motor Co. ($25.9 million), Nissan Motor Co LTD., ($22.1 million) and Toyota Motor Corp ($21.7 million).
- The top brands advertised by Procter & Gamble include Charmin, Bounty, Crest, Olay, Cover Girl and Tide. National Amusements, parent company to CBS Corp and Viacom, advertised several movies that featured African-American characters or casts, including “Freedom Writers,” “Dreamgirls,” “Norbit,” and “Black Snake Moan.”
Top Product Categories
- Spending for the top 15 product categories across all media reached over $806 million.
- The Automotive category has the most spending at $187.4 million, more than double the dollar amount of the number-two product category, Quick Service Restaurants, at $79.1 million.
- Motion Pictures is the third highest ad spending product category at $75.4 million.
About the Nielsen Monitor-Plus African-American advertising spending analysis:
- Radio: 92 stations across 28 markets. The following formats were included: Black News & Talk, Gospel, Urban Reggaeton, Smooth Jazz, Urban, Urban AC, and Urban Oldies.
- Network & Syndication TV: 3 television networks (13 programs) and 16 Syndication programs included. Includes programs with an African-American audience composition of 50% or greater.
- National Magazines: 12 titles.
- Cable TV: BET & TV One, as well as 61 programs across 16 additional networks provided the program achieves an African-American audience comp of 50% or greater. The 16 networks are: AMC, BRAVO, ESPN, ESPN2, ABC Family Channel, MTV, MTV2, OXYGEN, Sci-Fi, TBS, TNT, TVGN, TV Land, USA, VH1, and WGN Cable.
