TVB Forecasts Spot TV To Grow 6.1-7.9% In 2006.

The Television Bureau of Advertising today released its forecast for the television industry’s next two years at its annual Forecast Conference, attended by several hundred broadcast executives and advertising industry executives at the McGraw-Hill Conference Center in New York.

TVB forecast Total Spot TV revenues would grow between 6.1% and 7.9% in comparison with this year’s revenues, with Local Spot growing between 2.9% and 5.1% and National Spot by 10.5-11.7%.

TVB said market drivers in 2006 would be the impact of oil prices on consumer spending, the automotive and political categories, emerging new technologies, and measurement and accountability issues. “We also anticipate continued pushing and pulling between new vs. traditional media, national vs. local, and broadcast vs. cable,” said TVB President Chris Rohrs.

Mr. Rohrs said that the continuing impact of Hurricane Katrina remained a wild card. “Over the past 10 days broadcasters have demonstrated once again the matchless ability of television to tell a story, serve our communities, and indeed reshape the national agenda. The impact of the hurricane on the ad economy and the overall economy in 2006 remains an open question.”

In 2000 TVB began issuing two-year forecasts instead of its traditional one-year forecast. “The structure of the business has changed dramatically because of the Olympics switching to a two-year frequency and because of the growth of political advertising in Spot,” said Mr. Rohrs. “Odd years will always face tough comparisons to even years, when spending on both the Olympics and political ads show up. Spot TV is a two-year business cycle.”

TVB estimates — derived from a consensus of Wall Street and financial analysts, station representative firms, and independent TVB research — represent national averages. Individual firms and stations may produce varied results based on a number of factors, including market size, region of the country, and affiliation.