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The ad market has achieved five consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth according to data from Kantar Media. Total advertising expenditures in the first quarter of 2011 increased 4.4% from a year ago and finished the period at $32.5 billion.

Within the television sector, sports programming drove a shift of ad dollars from broadcast networks to cable networks. Cable TV expenditures increased 31.9%, with NCAA Men’s Basketball coverage onto Turner networks and a consolidation of major college football bowl games at ESPN. Network TV ad spending declined 10.4% due to the absence of Winter Olympics and college bowl games.

Internet display expenditures increased 14.6%, with demand from automotive, media and travel advertisers. Outdoor was up 12.5% paced by healthy increases from the local service, education and financial service categories.

Among magazine media, consumer magazines continued the revival that started in mid-2010 and expenditures rose 6.2% in the period.

Local radio was up 3.4% as higher budgets from auto dealers and insurance marketers offset weaker activity from local retailers, telecom and restaurants. National spot radio decreased 3.3% percent.

Newspaper media continued to trail the overall market. Despite resurgent spending from auto dealers, local newspapers fell by 1.1% versus a year ago and the segment has now declined for 22 consecutive quarters. National newspapers declined by 7.5% and Spanish language newspapers dropped 7.4%.