NEW YORK — Omnicom on Tuesday reported that PR agency revenue was down 2.9% in the fourth quarter of 2023 and 0.8% for the full year.

During Q4, Omnicom PR Group — which includes FleishmanHillard, Ketchum and Porter Novelli —  performed poorer than all the holding company’s disciplines other than experiential, which was down 8%. Increases were seen by advertising & media (9.3%); healthcare (3.6%); and commerce & branding (1%). Execution & support and precision marketing were down 1.1% and 0.4% respectively.

During the full year, increases were seen by advertising & media (6.5%); healthcare (3.8%); precision marketing (3.1%); experiential (3%) and commerce & branding (1.2%). In addition to PR, execution & support experienced a decline in revenue (1%).

In its earnings report, the company reported Omnicom as a whole saw worldwide revenue in the three months ending December 31 increase 4.4% to $4 billion. Full-year 2023 revenue rose 4.1% to $14.7 billion.

The impact of foreign currency translation during Q4 increased revenue by $47.0 million, or 1.2%.  Acquisition revenue, net of disposition revenue, reduced revenue by $25.6 million, or 0.7%, primarily due to dispositions earlier in the year in the execution & support discipline, partially offset by acquisitions in the third quarter of 2023 by advertising & media and public relations disciplines. OPRG acquired public affairs firm Plus Communications and political consultancy FP1 Strategies in September.

“Omnicom finished 2023 with 4.4% organic revenue growth in the fourth quarter and 4.1% for the year.  Looking out to full year 2024, we are set up well with solid fundamentals, tremendous opportunities in digital commerce and retail media from our Flywheel acquisition, and momentum in new business wins,” said chairman and CEO John Wren. “Our accelerated investments in analytics and AI will enhance our ability to drive the best outcomes for our clients, while shareholders remain supported by our profitable operations and balanced deployment of capital through dividends, acquisitions, and share repurchases.”

Q4 saw the second quarterly loss for OMPG, whose revenue dropped 5.5% in Q3 — the first quarterly decline the group had experienced since Q1 2021

The Q3 revenue decline followed a flat Q2, which capped eight consecutive quarters of PR growth, having seen a 5.8% increase in Q1, 12.7% in Q4 2022, a 12.6% increase in Q3 2022, a 15.8% increase in the second quarter of 2022, a 14% increase in Q1 2022, a 4.4% increase in Q4 2021, a 10.5%. increase in revenue during Q3 2021 and 15.1% growth in revenue during the second quarter of the year — a turnaround from the 3.5% decline the PR group experienced in the first quarter of 2021.

That had followed the positive turn Omnicom’s PR agencies saw in Q4 2020, when the group’s revenue rose 0.2%, the first reported uptick in business since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. The group saw revenue drop 3.4% in Q3 of 2020 and 13.5% during Q2, the height of the pandemic shutdown.