TV ads are a good barometer

An interesting report came out in Mediaweek this week talking about Discovery Communications advertising sales up 5% and the article further notes Rainbow (that's WEtv, Sundance, AMC etc.) was up 18+% .  How good news is this and what does it tell.

First Discovery Channel is and has always been a premium niche  outlet.  They, like A&E, Food, HGTV decided on programming that was consistent in genre and therefore audience.  Discovery never put out a blockbuster series but had a nice mix of specials and regular programs that produced a well defined audience. Reading their media kit, their best performance is for middle to slightly older men, high household income, professional, educated and, if you look at the economy, these are the folks that have a chance to dance through the economic mess.

Media buyers used to refer to Discovery as the Mercedes and Volvo channel as that is exactly the audience/product fit.  Now cars haven't faired well in this recession so that's a bad example.  However if ad sales are up then higher end advertisers are coming back in the game and that is the point of this blog.

Watch advertising on TV and see who and where ads are being bought by and the networks they are being placed on. It is a very good indication about where there is sufficient corporate recovery that enables advertsing spending.