TV advertising outlook brightens but UK, France and Canada slide

The mature markets of North America, Western Europe and Japan, which have been buffeted by tough economic conditions, will register advertising revenue growth this year while the rest of the world will post strong increases, according to the latest forecasts.

Influential media house ZenithOptimedia’s latest report on the advertising market forecasts global advertising revenue growth of 3.9% in 2013, taking the total to US$518 billion. The growth will be led by the non-mature markets, those outside of North America, Western Europe and Japan, which will grow by an average 8.2% this year. The mature markets, meanwhile, will witness 1.8% increases in cumulative ad revenue. The growth rates will increase to 9.4% and 3.5% respectively in 2015.

The weakness of the mature markets and strength of key emerging territories will alter the top-ten ranking of the largest ad markets. ZenithOptimedia says that the US, Japan, China and Germany will remain in first to fourth positions, and Australia and South Korea will still stay in eighth and tenth positions, respectively, but the UK will fall from fifth to sixth position, France for seventh to ninth and Canada will fall out of the top ten altogether.

While online advertising continues to grow at a fast rate, TV will hold its share of the overall advertising pie. It accounted for 40.3% of cumulative ad spend last year and by 2015 that will have decreased only fractionally to 40.2%. Internet advertising will overtake newspapers as the second largest category over the same period, with its share rising from 18% to 23.4%.