Argentina\'s investments in new media rise

Argentina's traditional pay-TV sales seconds fell 26.6% in 2011 at the same that online investment increased 86.6%. According to a detailed annual report on the local media industry's ad sales by the Argentine Chamber of Media Agencies (CAAM), as far as total volume (TV and radio seconds, pages in newspapers and magazines, billboards, banners and other internet spaces), there was a decrease in international growth across all media in comparison to 2010, up 0.5% and a considerable drop on the 2010 figure of 8%. This fall has been particularly noticeable in terms of pay-TV due to, says CAAM's report, “limitations applied to advertising on TV by Audiovisual Media Law 26.522." Public TV was also affected by the law, just not as much as pa-TV: a 2.4% fall in Buenos Aires and 1.6% in the rest of the country. Meanwhile, cinema was the media outlet where ad sales increased most with an 11.6% growth Yet despite this general decrease in absolute volume, in revenue terms ad sales in Argentina actually grew in 2011 to total $16.23 billion Argentine pesos against $12.34 billion in 2010, o a 31.3% growth. According to the CAAM, there are a couple of basic reasons behind this growth, notably "the increased availability of media inventories, demand for spaces, the evolution of the economy and inflation itself. The Latin American continent is currently running above the global average (which has grown between 5% and 6%) in terms of ad sales' growth potential for 2012. Yet the internet will continue to be the leader as far as growth potential among all media, according to CAAM.