MUMBAI: While the whole marketing industry has been showing certainty over the improving relevance of television as an advertising medium and several reports indicating a steady year-on-year growth for it, a latest TAM report reveals some worrying sign for the medium, denoting a significant dip in the number of brands and advertisers relying on it for their communications. 

The report reveals that around 400 advertisers and 450 brands stopped using TV for advertising in the first quarter of 2019 as compared to the corresponding quarter last year. The quarter also saw an indexed dip of 5 per cent in TV ad volumes as compared to January-March 2018. 

The top two advertisers, however, remained the same and showed an incremental growth in percent share in ad volumes. Hindustan Unilever contributed 11 per cent of ad volumes in Q1 of 2019 as compared to 9 per cent in Q1 of 2018 while Reckitt Benckiser (India) contributed 8 per cent as compared to 7 per cent. ITC replaced Cadbury from the number three spot and contributed 3 per cent to overall ad volumes in Q1 2019 than 2 per cent of the latter in Q1 2018. 

The top three categories also saw a minor shift as two-wheelers were replaced by toilet/floor cleaners in second spot. The latter amounted to 7 per cent of ad shares in Q1 of 2019. Toilet soaps and toothpastes were ranked first and third, respectively, similar to Q1 of 2018. These three contributed 13 per cent share of ad volumes during Q1 2019 and 11% share during Q1 2018