NEW YORK, Jan. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- In its first 12-month analysis of advertising spending on media outlets that reach African American consumers, The Nielsen Company reported today that spending for the period October 1, 2006 through September 30, 2007 totaled $2.3 billion. The Nielsen African American ad spending analysis covers over 22,000 national, regional and local advertisers, across 130+ media vehicles.

African American Spending by Medium

Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the advertising intelligence service of Nielsen, tracked 5 individual media for this analysis: Local Radio, National Magazine, National Cable TV, Network TV and Syndication TV. Local Radio reported the greatest amount of spending on African American targeted media at $805 million dollars, comprising 35% percent of total spending.

National Cable TV reported the largest ad growth with 14.5% during this period. This growth is the result of a number of factors including: Year over year growth for BET, the inclusion of TV One in the Nielsen Monitor-Plus service as of January 2007, as well as a number of high profile TV programs such as "House of Payne" on TBS, "Being Bobby Brown" on Bravo, "Flavor of Love" on VH1, and "Making the Band" on MTV.

"We think it is terrific that Nielsen has undertaken this analysis, demonstrating their desire to increase their reporting of ethnic advertising. It's the first-time that such a comprehensive analysis of advertising spending to reach African Americans has been undertaken," said Deborah Gray-Young, Vice President & Director of Media Services for Chicago-based E. Morris Communications. "This is an excellent first step, and we look forward to seeing the number of media included increase in future analysis."

"We're excited to be able to offer African American targeted media insights to our clients, and we look forward to continuing to provide analysis like this in the future," said Brian Lane, SVP of Client Strategy and Product Management for Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

National magazines reported more than $600 million in spending, showing healthy revenue across a number of publications including Essence magazine. Nielsen Monitor-Plus also added the following publications to its monitoring during this time period: American Legacy, King, Giant and XXL.

Syndication TV reported $102.4 million dollars in ad spend for programs that have a 50% or greater composition of African American audiences, and that's down year over year. Syndication is made up of a good mix of both established off-network programs such as "The Bernie Mac Show," "One on One" and "Girlfriends" as well original syndication programming, like "Judge Mathis" and "Showtime at the Apollo."

Network TV at $193.3 million dollars saw a consolidation of UPN and WB into the new CW network. The Top Network TV shows based on total ad revenue are: "Girlfriends," Everybody Hates Chris," "The Game," and "All of Us" on the CW, as well as "Watch Over Me" on MNT.

Oct '06 - Sep '07 Distribution Medium ($ in millions) Local Radio $805.0 35.1% National Magazine $600.9 26.2% National Cable TV $593.1 25.8% Network TV $193.3 8.4% Syndication TV $102.4 4.5% Total $2,294.7 100.0% Source: The Nielsen Company Top Advertisers & Product Categories

With $89.7 million in spending, Procter & Gamble is the largest advertiser targeting African American consumers. McDonald's is second with $37.7 million, followed by Johnson and Johnson with $36.1 million in total spending for the 12 months October 2006 through September 2007. Collectively, the Top 25 Advertisers spent a total of $681.0 million.

Five auto makers are in the top 25 advertisers across all African American media: General Motors ($35.8 million), Chrysler ($28.2 million), Ford Motor Co. ($25.9 million), Nissan Motor Co LTD., ($22.1 million) and Toyota Motor Corp ($21.7 million).

The top brands advertised by Procter & Gamble include Charmin, Bounty, Crest, Olay, Cover Girl and Tide. National Amusements, parent company to CBS Corp and Viacom advertised for a number of movies that featured African American characters or casts including "Freedom Writers," "Dreamgirls," "Norbit," and "Black Snake Moan."

Spending for the top 15 product categories across all media reached over $806 million. Not surprisingly the Automotive category has the most spending at $187.4 million, more than double the dollar amount of the number two product category, Quick Service Restaurants at $79.1 million. Motion Pictures is the third highest ad spending product category at $75.4 million.

Oct '06 - Top 25 Advertisers Across All Sep '07 African American Media ($ in millions) PROCTER & GAMBLE CO 89.7 MCDONALD'S CORP 37.7 JOHNSON & JOHNSON 36.1 GENERAL MOTORS CORP 5.8 NATL AMUSEMENTS INC 0.6 CHRYSLER (CERBERUS) 8.2 VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC 6.8 US GOVERNMENT 6.1 TIME WARNER INC 6.0 FORD MOTOR CO 5.9 LOREAL SA 5.0 KRAFT FOODS INC 24.5 WALT DISNEY CO 24.0 GENERAL ELECTRIC CO 23.2 AT&T INC 22.9 WAL-MART STORES INC 22.6 NISSAN MOTOR CO LTD 22.1 TOYOTA MOTOR CORP 21.7 UNILEVER 21.6 PEPSICO INC 20.9 SONY CORP 19.2 NEWS CORP 18.9 SPRINT NEXTEL CORP 17.9 ALLSTATE CORP 17.3 BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC 16.2 TOTAL TOP 25 ADVERTISERS $681.0 Source: The Nielsen Company Top 15 African American Oct '06 - Media Product Categories Sep '07 - $mil AUTOMOTIVE $187.4 QUICK SERVICE RESTAURANTS $79.1 MOTION PICTURE $75.4 DEPARTMENT STORES $72.0 WIRELESS TELEPH SVCS $64.2 APPAREL $46.6 AUTO INSURANCE $44.6 DIRECT RESPONSE PRODUCTS $40.9 PRESCRIPTION DRUGS $38.0 RESTAURANT $30.2 HOME IMPROVEMENT STORES $29.2 PROFESSIONAL ORGN $26.1 SUPERMARKET $24.8 FACIAL MOISTURIZER $24.1 BANK SERVICES $23.4 TOTAL Top 15 $806.1 Source: The Nielsen Company

In addition to this African American advertising analysis, Nielsen Monitor-Plus reports annually on Spanish-Language ad spending for 6 distinct media: Spanish-Language cable and network television, national magazines, local newspapers, local TV and local radio.

Nielsen Monitor-Plus African American Advertising Spending Analysis Methodology

Radio: 92 stations across 28 markets. The following formats were included: Black News & Talk, Gospel, Urban Reggaeton, Smooth Jazz, Urban, Urban AC, and Urban Oldies.

Network & Syndication TV: 3 television networks (13 programs) and 16 Syndication programs included. Includes programs with an African American audience composition of 50% or greater.

National Magazines: 12 titles.

Cable TV: BET & TV One, as well as 61 programs across 16 additional networks provided the program achieves an African American audience comp of 50% or greater. The 16 networks are: AMC, BRAVO, ESPN, ESPN2, ABC Family Channel, MTV, MTV2, OXYGEN, Sci-Fi, TBS, TNT, TVGN, TV Land, USA, VH1, and WGN Cable.

The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (NetRatings and BuzzMetrics), mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA. For more information, please visit, http://www.nielsen.com/

CONTACT: Laura Czaja of The Nielsen Company, +1-646-654-8681

Web site: http://www.nielsen.com/