Where the ad money flows
The Expert Monitor study, which reports that TVP1, RMF FM and Gazeta Wyborcza spend the most in their respective categories of TV, radio and press, extrapolates its figures from the price lists of top media outlets. Most notably, the report shows a 22.8 percent increase in advertising spending for this August compared to August 2003. But in this case it would appear that words speak louder than numbers.
Expert Monitor's recent figures are certainly a welcome sign, but are figures based on price lists reliable? "Of course not," says Maciej Chodorowski, director of research and monitoring at CR-Media, a rival marketing/media research firm which he says is "doing analysis and reports on real data." But the next of CR-Media's quarterly reports won't be out until mid-November, so ad market watchers will just have to wait.
"There are very positive signs, but we certainly can't base it on one single month," says Al Harris, general director of Media Group, a leading media house. He points out that the Olympics and Euro 2004 surely played a role in the August boost.
And even Piotr Słaby, president of Expert Monitor, freely admits that just looking at one month hardly provides the complete picture. "For the big stations, there was no big change," he says, although he is willing to say one positive thing:
"For sure ad spending is up."
And that is one thing all parties agree on.
"Advertisers are more confident than before," says Harris. He says his company has benefited from the upturn. Although major short-term fluctuations go with the territory when it comes to advertising, as Harris describes, "we are positive about the medium-term future, and in the long-term it does look quite rosy [for us]."
Television remains the big money avenue, with TVP 1 grabbing a hefty zł.109.1 million in August alone, according to Expert Monitor's report. But there is only so much airtime to fill, and many advertisers may increasingly turn to alternative outlets, like the rapidly growing online market, which currently holds only around 1 percent of advertising money.
"TV was doing quite well the last two years at the expense of others-and it's doing quite well now also," says Chorowski. "It's a time that other smaller media will grow more compared to TV [though], as they get moved over to smaller media when TV runs out of air time."
With TVP's dominant position, in the past some have even gone so far as to say that because of being state-owned, they've been able to charge unnaturally low prices and have thus hurt private sector competitors as well as other media in general (like press and radio), who may have lost out when companies that otherwise would have turned to press or radio could suddenly afford to hock their wares on TV.
Al Harris, however, among most others, disagrees. "Why this old story keeps getting resurrected I think is because this is politically led, bashing TVP for various reasons. He is critical of any complaints, especially in Poland, about something being "too cheap," pointing out that such a complaint would rarely be heard in Western countries, where this would rightly be seen as a sign of healthy competition.
"TV has become a very competitive and open market," says Harris. "Most have set all their airtime at the market price."
Perhaps the only complaint from consumers would have to be that the commercial breaks on non-TVP channels often stretch out for so long that we forget what program we were watching in the first place.
Expert Monitor's recent figures are certainly a welcome sign, but are figures based on price lists reliable? "Of course not," says Maciej Chodorowski, director of research and monitoring at CR-Media, a rival marketing/media research firm which he says is "doing analysis and reports on real data." But the next of CR-Media's quarterly reports won't be out until mid-November, so ad market watchers will just have to wait.
"There are very positive signs, but we certainly can't base it on one single month," says Al Harris, general director of Media Group, a leading media house. He points out that the Olympics and Euro 2004 surely played a role in the August boost.
And even Piotr Słaby, president of Expert Monitor, freely admits that just looking at one month hardly provides the complete picture. "For the big stations, there was no big change," he says, although he is willing to say one positive thing:
"For sure ad spending is up."
And that is one thing all parties agree on.
"Advertisers are more confident than before," says Harris. He says his company has benefited from the upturn. Although major short-term fluctuations go with the territory when it comes to advertising, as Harris describes, "we are positive about the medium-term future, and in the long-term it does look quite rosy [for us]."
Television remains the big money avenue, with TVP 1 grabbing a hefty zł.109.1 million in August alone, according to Expert Monitor's report. But there is only so much airtime to fill, and many advertisers may increasingly turn to alternative outlets, like the rapidly growing online market, which currently holds only around 1 percent of advertising money.
"TV was doing quite well the last two years at the expense of others-and it's doing quite well now also," says Chorowski. "It's a time that other smaller media will grow more compared to TV [though], as they get moved over to smaller media when TV runs out of air time."
With TVP's dominant position, in the past some have even gone so far as to say that because of being state-owned, they've been able to charge unnaturally low prices and have thus hurt private sector competitors as well as other media in general (like press and radio), who may have lost out when companies that otherwise would have turned to press or radio could suddenly afford to hock their wares on TV.
Al Harris, however, among most others, disagrees. "Why this old story keeps getting resurrected I think is because this is politically led, bashing TVP for various reasons. He is critical of any complaints, especially in Poland, about something being "too cheap," pointing out that such a complaint would rarely be heard in Western countries, where this would rightly be seen as a sign of healthy competition.
"TV has become a very competitive and open market," says Harris. "Most have set all their airtime at the market price."
Perhaps the only complaint from consumers would have to be that the commercial breaks on non-TVP channels often stretch out for so long that we forget what program we were watching in the first place.
