U.S. Ad Market Forecast 2016: A Good Year, But Some Slowdowns For TV, Radio

by Wayne Friedman, 5 hours ago                                            

While the U.S. advertising market is poised for a good year due to digital media, political advertising, and the Rio Summer Olympics, some media segments appear to be slowing a bit. A new forecast from eMarketer says U.S. advertising spending will grow 5.1% this year to $192.02 billion, with TV spending rising 2.5% to $70.6 billion and digital media spending up 15.4% to $68.82 billion.

Previous eMarketer estimates for TV and radio projections were higher. Other forecasts project TV advertising spend will rise anywhere from 3.0% to 3.2% in 2016 over the year before.

 

Now the eMarketer study says traditional TV ad sales -- even with the Rio Olympics and political advertising -- will “have a challenging year ahead as a result of declining viewership and increased competition from video-on-demand (VOD) and digital streaming services.”

 

While TV still has the largest share of media spending -- 36.8% to digital media’s 35.8% -- this is projected to change next year with digital media surpassing TV. eMarketer says in 2017, total digital media spending will get to $77.37 billion; with TV advertising spending at $72.01 billion.

 

Total print advertising is projected to land at $26.74 billion this year -- down from $28.16 billion -- while radio will also slip to $14.12 billion from $14.27 billion and directories will fall to $4.25 billion from $4.56 billion.

 

Out-of-home media will continue to increase, rising $7.50 billion this year from $7.31 in 2015.