The cable industry is having a spectacular year so far. That is, if you concentrate solely on advertiser dollars.

Spending by advertisers on cable channels was up 1.6 percent through the first half of 2009, according to The Nielsen Co., while other television avenues were all down.

Cable made its biggest rebound in the second quarter since the first three months of the year actually reported a 2.7 percent decline compared to the same period a year before.

Unfortunately, that was the extent of the good news for cable, which lost 1.4 million subscribers over the last 18 months, according to Multichannel News.

Cable has been a formidable opponent to network television, which has dominated the airwaves pretty much since the inception of the boob tube. However, advertising on networks were down 7 percent over the first six months compared to 2008 while syndication was off by 11.6 percent.

It gets even worse for local television markets, where the 100 biggest were off 17.4 percent in advertising, while the middle 100 was down 32.1 percent.

That has led the charge of a total 15.4 percent decline throughout the television industry, a sure sign of the economic times.

Automobile dealership ads had the largest drop, but was partially offset by increased ad spending from direct response products, quick-service restaurants and movie studios. Even bigger were mobile telephone advertisers, with a 100 percent increase, and cable television companies themselves, which was up more than 62 percent.