Advertisers are under intense scrutiny, but not because of some risque new campaigns.

Rather, it’s all about the spend these days. Are marketing budgets holding up in the face of an economic slowdown that may turn into a full-blown recession? Or have advertisers started cutting the dollars they are putting into TV, radio, print, outdoor, and… get this… the Internet.

Shares of Google Inc dropped 8 percent on Tuesday, largely based on a report by comScore showing a 7 percent decline in advertisements viewed on the site during January.  

The Wall Street Journal pointed out that Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt recently said the Web company hadn’t seen any impact from macroeconomic softening, but the paper also noted that ”some investors and analysts have grown anxious in recent months that any pullbacks in consumer spending would hurt online ads.”

The same is true, of course, for all other media. CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves, however, said the company hasn’t been hurt by economic pressures, since they largely have hit ”sectors like home building and real estate (that) are not significant advertisers on our air.”

Robin Diedrich, a senior analyst with Edward Jones, told Reuters that pressure from the economy could be on its way. “I believe they will see some of that softness. It takes a little bit of time. When consumer spending starts to slow, and that trickles into corporate profits, then that cuts into advertising budgets.”

(Reuters) (Wall Street Journal)

Keep an eye on:

• The European Commission fined Microsoft a record 899 million euros ($1.35 billion) for defying sanctions imposed on the software giant for antitrust violations, far exceeding the original penalty. The commission said no other company had ever ignored sanctions (Reuters)
• The New York Times is expected to meet with four board candidates backed by a dissident investors group within the next week or so, as the publisher braces for a second shareholder uprising in three years (Reuters).
• CBS Radio Chief Executive Dan Mason tells MarketWatch that so far advertisers are pleased with the higher ratings that have come with format changes at some stations.(MarketWatch)