Maiden Group, the largest independent outdoor media owner in the UK, on Friday declared its pessimism about a return to normal market conditions before the year end.
Yields had been put under pressure by “challenging” conditions within the marketplace, while visible prospects for the advertising sector remained “limited”.
Although recovery had seemed well on the way during this year’s first quarter (24% growth year-on-year), Maiden had been hard hit in Q2 by the effects of the war on Iraq.
Reported a company statement: “Predicting the outcome for the full year remains difficult other than to confirm that conditions are not expected to show a marked improvement over last year. Revenue growth in the first half was expected to be between 3-5%, reflecting the widely reported difficult advertising conditions in the second quarter.”
However, a note of cautious optimism ahead of announcing its H1 results on September 25: “The group believes now that this growth will be at the higher end of the range.”
Data sourced from: MediaGuardian.co.uk; additional content by WARC staff
