The numbers are out for the top advertisers in radio, television and cable last year, as detected by Media Monitors broadcast monitoring. As has been consistent in most weekly market reports last year, insurance giant Geico was first in radio across the nation, with 2,298,351 spots in 2010. Also consistent in their rankers across the year, #2 went to The Home Depot (1,959,994 spots), #3 McDonald’s (1,267,093 spots), #4 Verizon (1,193,995 spots) and #5 went to The HD Digital Radio Alliance (1,135,215 spots).
Interestingly, television tune-in was tops for broadcast TV last year, with the NBC Television Network (810,159 spots) coming in first and ABC Television Network second (796,135 spots). Ford Lincoln Mercury (we’ve been telling you automotive was back in a big way in 2010) was third (628,247 spots); CBS Television Network fourth (609,367 spots) and Verizon fifth (589,698 spots). If you remember, a lot of the Verizon ads came from the big coverage battle with AT&T (#13 on the same list) with the red and blue maps.
So yes, Ford Lincoln Mercury was the top non-TV advertiser on broadcast TV. They were also #11 on Radio with 557,742 ads. And on cable, they came in #11 with 716,505 spots.
Speaking of cable, the tune-in story was very similar: #1 was TNT – Turner Network Television (1,877,228 spots); #2 Discovery Channel (1,768,837 spots); #3 A&E Network (1,556,284 spots); #4 TBS (1,277,367 spots) and #5 USA Network with 1,269,145 spots (yes, #6 was also tune-in, with Lifetime). Much of these tune-in spots in cable and broadcast were cross-promoted/ traded on sister networks of the big conglomerates. Geico also came in as the top non-TV advertiser for cable, with 1,003,454 spots.
