Agency advertising spending declined during October, with the latest Guideline Standard Media Index revealing government ad spending and the Food, Produce & Dairy category were the areas of most ad spend decline.

APAC Managing Director Jane Ractliffe said the October results confirm the ad market remains “extremely cautious,” although she expects the level of decline to reduce with further late Digital bookings. SMI does not measure direct advertising which has been steady for regional radio according to radioinfo sources.

Ractcliffe said “lower ad demand concentrated among a few key categories [is] pulling the broader market lower… 90% of this month’s total decline has come from only ten categories.” Late bookings may reduce thne decline slightly.

Ad spend in the government category tumbled 31.2% and the Food category dropped by 29.5%.

Insurance ad spend increased by 21% in the period to becoem the second largest category this month.

The share of advertising for all major media fell in October.

Ad demand so far over the whole calendar year remains positive, up 0.2% on the previous calendar year period.

Audio national ad agency spend declined by 19.1% this month.

SMI data is sourced directly from advertising agencies’ billing systems and then aggregated to show the combined picture of media Agency ad spend across all major media sectors. It segments the data across 42 product categories and more than 150 sub categories. Its Australian data covers more than 98%V of all agency spending.