National media outlets are feeling the effects of the serious slowdown in advertising trends that have impacted local media this year, Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Wienkes stated in a note to investors on Monday, the Associated Press reported.

Wienkes said the auto and financials industries are dragging down the year-over-year advertising revenue, and added that he does not expect “the declines to hit bottom before 2009 or possibly later.”

“From an advertiser perspective, growth in 2009 budgets appears limited to defensive sectors picking up share (household/personal care, food/beverage, discount retail, communications) with the troubled auto and financial categories set for further cuts," according to the analyst, the AP reported in an article posted by Yahoo! Finance. “It is unclear whether these 'value' advertisers can grow enough to temper overall trends materially.”

The cable networks are one of the healthiest advertising media, but “booked the worst sequential deterioration,” Wienkes said. Cable advertising growth in the third quarter was about five percent, only half of that in the previous quarter, Biz Yahoo! reported.

Wienkes said Time Warner Inc. outperformed, while CNN and CNN Headline News got a boost from the Olympics and the election. “Cable networks with greater auto exposure, like Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN, or those with ratings challenges likely faced softer ad trends,” he added.

Network television ad trends also obviously slowed during the quarter. Wienkes said it was partly due to “the domination of Olympic coverage by NBC and the preemptions of prime-time television by presidential debates and other events,” according to the AP.

The analyst expects network TV to continue its decline in the fourth quarter, and the drop possibly accelerating in the first quarter as advertisers cut back on their budgets.

Advertising pressures are still on among local television stations and radio during the quarter, he added. "The newspaper industry also remains under severe stress as ad revenue continued to drop and newsprint prices climbed higher," the AP reported.

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