Between Ramadan 2009 and 2010, advertising spend increased by 71 per cent in Bahrain to $16 million, outperforming any other country in the region, said a report.

The Pan Arab media market increased spending by 128 per cent but in national economies, the closest to Bahrain in growth was Oman with an 18 per cent rise, Qatar was up 17 per cent and Egypt 16 per cent.

These are the findings of Pan Arab Research Centre (PARC), a leader in market research and media monitoring in the region.

Overall, advertising on television appears to dominate the media scene during Ramadan with about 80 per cent share of the total adverts spend, followed by newspapers with 15 per cent share.

"Last year Egypt's advertising market followed the Pan Arab market in terms of advertising value during Ramadan. However, it remains to be seen if it would continue this year, owing to the huge drop in adverts spend in Egypt for the first half of the year due to the Arab Spring," said PARC Bahrain branch manager Leo Joseph.

"Egypt's media scene witnessed a steep drop of 50 per cent in advertising spend this year according to the first half-year figures released earlier by PARC.”

"The increase in adverts spend during Ramadan in Bahrain in 2010 was impressive and the amount of advertising investments was almost equally split between daily newspapers and the domestic market television," he said.

"While for many years it has been common knowledge that most of the advertising investments in Pan Arab media were directed to consumers in Saudi Arabia, in recent times there has been a remarkable growth of contribution through the Pan Arab media's satellite TV into the Egyptian domestic advertising market, and an expansion of the role Pan Arab media is able to embody,” Joseph continued.

"It is uncertain though if the 22 per cent drop in advertising investments in the first half of 2011 due to the unrest in Bahrain would persist to have an effect on advertising during Ramadan. We will shortly release early trends," he added. – TradeArabia News Service