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.
Total 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.
