The vast majority of media companies increased their local broadcast ad spending last year by a large amount.
Leading the way was AT&T (T) which increased its spending by 175 percent over the same time last year. They totaled $80 million in local spending for the year.
Comcast (CMCSA) increased their spending by almost twice as much as the year before finishing with $44.9 million for the fourth quarter alone.
Time Warner (TWX) ended up spending $68.8 million for local broadcast-TV ads, an increase of 75 percent from last years' fourth quarter as well. That included their Time Warner Cable, Turner Broadcasting System and Warner Bros. units.
For Disney (DIS), they were more conservative in local broadcast-TV spending increasing their total by only 19.1 percent through spending $37.3 million for the last quarter of 2006.
Interestingly, Verizon (VZ) actually decreased their spending, putting out $40.3 million for the fourth quarter, ending up 9.5 percent down from the fourth quarter of 2005. A little surprising with the fierce competition going on between telcos, cable and satellite companies.
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