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Video may have killed the radio star but new media has not yet done away with traditional television advertising.
Free-to-air industry body ThinkTV says television still reaches 96% of the population over a seven day period and the industry is expecting a strong end to the year.
It is calling the combination of the Rugby World Cup, the election and Christmas a "trifecta" that will mean advertisers will be fighting for primetime spots.
TVNZ and MediaWorks TV are already reporting exceptionally high levels of early bookings.
"We have experienced unprecedented forward demand across the last quarter of 2011 which gives us a lot of confidence in continued market recovery," says Paul Maher, TVNZ's Head of Sales and Marketing.
MediaWorks, which owns TV3 and FOUR, also says they are seeing "more television activity than we have seen for some time".
Total turnover for the media industry - dependent on advertising revenue - rose last year for the first year since 2007 and now sits 4.5% higher than 2009, at $2.14 billion.
Surprising appeal
ThinkTV's CEO Rick Friesen says the continuing appeal of TV has come as something of a surprise considering the rise of digital media.
"Television has some strengths that weren't expected. People are watching more television, about 20% more than they used to before Personal Video Recorders (PVRs), and they are watching more live television."
Friesen says while advertisers have jumped on board with new media, they are now heading back to traditional television and its 30-second ad spots.
The growth in PVRs was expected to drastically hurt TV advertising but Friesen says that has just not happened.
"Ninety-five per cent of viewing is still to live television. For those who watch delayed programming, still 47% of ads are watched," he explained to AMP Business.
He admitted it was surprising that people still watched ads but thinks it is partly due to ingrained behaviour: "You are used to watching television with ads and sometimes you just forget and let it roll."
New Zealand's Advertising Standards Authority says newspaper advertising still holds top spot with $627m in turnover or 29.3% of the market, while television is close behind 28.4% or $607m.
Spending on online advertising in the United Kingdom surpassed spending on television ads in late 2009 but online still lags behind newspapers and TV in New Zealand.
