Nielsen: Broadcast Ad Spend Zooms in Q3

Broadcast television enjoyed an impressive third quarter, as overall network spend soared 35 percent versus the year-ago period. According to data just released by Nielsen, the broadcasters booked north of $5.33 billion in Q3 ad sales, a significant improvement over the $3.95 billion raked in during the period spanning July 1 and Sept. 30, 2011.

A good deal of that extra volume was funneled toward NBC, thanks to its coverage of the 2012 London Summer Olympics. The Peacock scared up $1.2 billion in ad sales during the 17-day event. More evenly distributed political dollars also swelled broadcast’s coffers to some extent although the vast majority of the estimated $3.3 billion spent by various campaigns and SuperPACs was allotted to local TV. Broadcast’s strong showing also came on the heels of the 2012-13 upfront, during which the networks wrote some $9.15 billion in commitments on their prime-time inventory.