Looked at in detail the findings show that, across all media, newspapers remained the biggest medium but only registered an increase of S$167.7 million, up 0.7% in advertising. This represents a sharp drop from the 27% increase during first quarter of 2000 over 1999. TV, the second biggest medium, suffered a drop of S$106.9 million, representing a 0.7% contraction.

Other media appear to have benefited from this trend, as advertisers turned to less costly alternatives to maintain their exposure. Hence, the data shows that advertising expenditure in radio was up 26%, magazines grew 21% and posters jumped 26%.

"The double-digit growth of advertising expenditure in 2000 appears to be unsustainable. This is likely to be further aggravated by the recent downgrading of Singapore's GDP forecast for 2001, from between 5 and 7 per cent, to between 3.3 and 5.5 per cent. Unless there is a major economic uplift, low single-digit growth can be expected this year," said Lennart Bengtsson, managing director of ACNielsen Singapore and Malaysia. "The modest growth in newspaper advertising is likely to be under threat too. The competition between Singapore Press Holdings and Mediacorp Press, which is heating up while total growth is soft, may not augur well for all concerned."

ACNielsen AdEx research is based on monitoring gross advertising expenditures in major media at published rate card values.