Online Ad Spending to Outstrip Print by 2014: Study
PricewaterhouseCoopers today released its forecasts on the entertainment and media business through 2014. One of the big reveals, according to The Wall Street Journal, which got its hands on a copy of the report: online ad revenues will surpass those of newspapers, making the Internet the U.S.’ second-biggest generator of ad sales (TV, of course, is still the big winner).
The PwC study forecasts that online ads, not including mobile devices, will grow to $34.4 billion in 2014 from $24.2 billion in 2009, while newspapers lose ground, according to the Journal:
According to numbers released by the Newspaper Association of America earlier this year, print advertising revenue dropped 28.6% in 2009 to $24.82 billion. The PwC report estimates that print advertising in newspapers will h[i]t $22.3 billion by 2014.
The report also said that global spending on consumer magazines dropped 11% in 2009, and PwC expects a further 2.7% drop this year. The firm doesn’t expect magazine spending to begin growing again until 2012. “As a result, spending will total $74 billion in 2014, up 0.7 percent compounded annually from $71.5 billion in 2009,” PwC said.
PwC offers some explanation for the uptrend in Web ad revenue in an announcement accompanying the report:
Using the Internet is now one of the great unifying experiences of the current era for consumers everywhere — and their expectation of Internet-style interactivity and access to content will continue to expand across media consumption in every segment.
For 2010, however, the global ad market and consumer spending for entertainment and media will remain flat.
Other highlights of the report:
• PwC expects the global entertainment and media market to grow to $1.7 trillion in 2014, vs. $1.3 trillion in 2009.
• By 2014, overall U.S. ad spending will still be 9% below 2006 levels.
• Global ad revenue will climb to $498 billion in 2014 from $406 billion in 2009.
• Don’t get too hot on the educational e-book revolution just yet; PwC expects electronic educational books to grow very quickly over the next several years but only take in 6% of global spending on educational books in 2014.
