Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) Our first question comes from Alexia Quadrani from JPMC.
Alexia Quadrani -- JPMC
Thank you. A couple of questions. The first one, I know you commented that you don’t expect the revenue environment to improve in the second half of the year. Are you seeing any signs of a maybe some stabilization or the rate of decline maybe leveling off a little bit? I guess any color you can provide us on any verticals or any – and particularly in the Shoppers business anything you are seeing that might give us some hope that at some point we are going to hit a bottom here. And then I have a followup.
Larry Franklin
Okay. In the Shoppers business, if you look at the details behind the numbers, on a sequential basis, our – and booked ads may have stabilized somewhat albeit at a reduced level from last year and earlier this year. The customers, as I said in my remarks, we have fewer customers, and they are continuing to manage their spend very carefully and they do that by either, again, the size of ad or the search.
If you look at the sectors that we service, our primary (inaudible) categories, if you will, real estate as a category is down less than the total and it’s improved over the last two quarters. The improvement is in agents, brokers, and property management. Anything related to building, construction, or specialty contractors, still way, way, down.
On the services side, overall pretty much reflects the overall performance for the Shoppers except for educational services. And that’s about flat, I guess.
Consumer spending, again, as a total, about the same as the total. Grocery and eating and dining are performing than the category and better than the overall. Automotive, with special deals way down, that’s actually gotten worse over the last six months. Communications is doing a little better than – actually performing pretty well. So, it’s – Alexia, it’s hard to draw major conclusions all of that. Also, our larger accounts, we call them major accounts and (inaudible) national accounts are doing better than the local business. And that has been the case, so I think, Doug, for the last couple of quarters, right?
Doug Shepard
Yes.
Larry Franklin
So, that’s the color on the Shoppers business. in Direct Marketing, I guess in a general sense the tone may be a little better as customers are beginning to talk more about maybe adding a few things. But even though there is some talk about that, implementation has been slow because there is just a significant wait-and-see and decisions being made at the last moment. Doug talked about the verticals. FMOs, financial markets obviously is very hard hit. And that’s primarily or the biggest part of that is from credit card and what we call diversified. Little bit of a better performance in the mutual fund side.
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