Amsterdam – Asia Pacific is driving the slow improvement in advertising expenditure, with 6.5 percent growth in the second quarter, while Europe and North America are still facing some challenges posed by the economic crisis. According to Nielsen’s Global AdView Pulse, which reports advertising across 27 markets in Asia, North America, Europe and Africa, overall advertising expenditures decreased 6.8 percent for the first half of the year compared to the first half of 2008. However, the second quarter closed with a more contained decline of 5.8 percent compared to a 7.9 percent decline in the first quarter versus the same periods of the previous year. All media types have suffered from general cutbacks by advertisers throughout the first half of the year. Magazines and newspapers took the biggest hit losing -18.5% and -7.5%, respectively, with negative growth in all regions. Radio has emerged in many markets as the media type with the most contained percentage decline (-3.1% globally), even registering an increase in Asia Pacific (+3.1%). Television, too, showed a mixed result depending upon the region, with North America (-14.9%) and Europe (-8.0%) showing drops in spend, whilst Asia Pacific showed growth when compared to the first half of 2008. As with the half year results, television and radio are the media types showing the smallest percentage decreases in the second quarter and they are still showing growth in Asia Pacific and losing revenues in both Europe and North America. “In this economic environment, brands favour broadcast media: TV always being considered as the most reliable media in hard times and radio provides a solid call to action platform,” said Ben van der Werf, managing director, Global AdView, The Nielsen Company. “Throughout the remainder of 2009 and beyond, we can expect to see ad spend for broadcast media slowly moving toward better performance – but it’s unlikely print advertising will show any great gains in the near future.”