Media to benefit from ad recovery

Media companies, says Barry Smith, will be among the last to feel the full benefits of economic recovery.

First, consumers need to start spending, and marketers of consumer goods need to be feeling good about the direction of the economy. Only then will marketers resume the levels of advertising that help broadcast stations, Web site operators and newspapers get back to full health, says Smith, the executive director of the Nevada Press Association.

Executives in the media business say they're beginning to see signs that the recovery is taking root.

"There's maybe a little more confidence out there," says Valerie Glenn, president and chief executive officer of The Glenn Group, a Reno-based marketing company.

Glenn says advertisers are spending more to deliver fresh messages, investing more in the production of new advertising and boosting their spending on digital advertising.

"Our more savvy marketers understand that they still need to be out there," Glenn says.

Even so, she says advertisers remain cautious and often unwilling to make big commitments.

The 2012 presidential election will provide an additional boost to broadcast operators, says Mary Beth Sewald, general manager of KRNV News 4 in Reno.

The NBC station, she says, expects to gain additional momentum in its local sales efforts from the network's broadcasts of the Super Bowl and the Summer Olympics.

"Our local advertisers know how many people watch those programs," she says.

Already, Sewald says furniture retailers have been strong local advertisers and auto dealers are beginning to boost their advertising buys.

Newspaper publishers, Smith says, appear to be gaining confidence as well.

For instance, he says, they are more likely to hire to fill vacancies that might have been left vacant a year ago.

And most, he says, have reduced their expenses to the point that they are profitable even without a recovery in ad spending.