According to the latest Mediaguide AdMonitor review of radio advertising across the U.S., from July 1st through July 15th, the top retail brands are, for the most part, tracking at lower levels that the same period in 2009.

“I read in MediaPost NEWS that the retail recovery is showing alarming signs of pooping out,” said Joan Gerberding, Mediaguide‟s EVP Advertising Sales, “but the experts are predicting that marketers will go all in for the back-to-school season.‟ Our data may be predicting the same thing.”

While Macy's, Target, JC Penney and Kmart are down for the first 15 days of July 2010 versus the same period of 2009, both Kohl's and Wal-Mart are significantly up with Kohl's running nearly 10 times the number of radio commercials this year and Wal-Mart doubling their radio spot load.

During the period August 1 through Sept. 1, 2009, the top four advertisers in this category were: Wal-Mart with 220,324 ads, Macy‟s with 62,364 ads, Kohl‟s with 45,589 and JC Penney with 41,195 ads. Target and Kmart ran under 1,000 ads during this period last year.

“I think it's a good bet to say that the big name department stores are saving their advertising budgets to blast back-to-school ads toward the end of the summer,” continued Gerberding.