TV advertising in the U.S. is expected to dip in a non-Olympic year according to a forecast from media buyer ZenithOptimedia that sees digital driving overall ad spending increased domestically and internationally.
Zenith expects U.S. ad market spending to rise 3.7% in 2015, followed by increases of 4.1% in 2016 and 3.6% in 2017. The outlook for TV spending in the U.S. shows a 0.2% decline in 2015, followed by a 1.9% increase in 2016 (an Olympic and presidential election year) and a 0.4% gain in 2017 to $197.2 billion.
Globally, Zenith expects ad spending to climb 4.4% to $544 billion in 2015. Growth is seen accelerating to 5.3% in 2016 and 4.7% in 2017. Those forecasts are lower than in previous reports. The agency points to deepening recession in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and a slowdown in China. Despite that, growth is above the average rate for the last 10 years and the last 20 years.
Article continues belowTotal ad spending on the Internet grew 18.5% in 2014 and Zenith expects online spending to average 14% growth through 2017.
Spending on television will grow globally, but its share is likely to slip over the next few years, the agency says. TV captured a 29.9% share of spending in 1980, which grew to 39.7% in 2013. It slipped to 39.4% in 2014 and will settle at 37.3% in 2017.
Zenith says marketers are beginning to move small budges away from television to online video. Online video’s share is seen growing from 2.1% in 2014 to 3.9% in 2017.
An explosion in mobile is powering online video into the fastest-growing advertising category. Zenith estimates global spending on online video jumped 34% to $10.9 billion in 2014 and expects an average growth rate of 29% a year through 2017, when spending could reach $23.3 billion.
