Outdoor suffered its biggest year-on-year fall in ad spend in almost six years during Q1, down 6.7%.
Tim Bleakley, CBS Outdoor managing director of sales and marketing, said: "Q2 has improved and I expect to see low single-digit growth; maybe 1% to 2%." He added that Q3 "looks a bit stronger" than Q2.
A straw poll of other leading outdoor companies, including JCDecaux, Clear Channel UK and Primesight, found that all are expecting ad spend in Q2 to be up year on year.
However, smaller operators warned that their Q2 ad spend could be down. Andrew Walker, Airport Partners' managing director and founder, admitted May was poor, with June "not looking special". He estimates that Q2 will be down about 5%.
Walker said: "It is now dawning on advertisers that there is a triple recession - the credit squeeze, consumer spending is down and there is a downturn in the housing market."
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