UK online ad spend overtakes TV for the first time

Valerie | 02 Oct 2009, 16:46

The latest figures published by media agency Carat indicates that the UK ad market is not expected to recover until 2010.

Carat has significantly revised its March forecasts, which predicted a 7.1 per cent drop for the UK and a 5.8 per cent fall globally. The new forecast now predicts a decline of almost 12%. TV advertising will fall by 12% this year; radio by 12.6%; outdoor by 12.2%; and the newspaper and magazine sectors by 20% and 16% respectively.

This follows the news this week that the UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record £1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year.

Whilst this may mark a milestone for the “embattled TV industry” as the leading ad medium in the UK for almost half a century, critics have pointed out that it is inaccurate to collate all the figures as if it is one single medium.

Despite the gloomy picture for the UK, Carat said it expects growth of 1% in 2010, driven by more stable conditions in the West and a recovery in developing markets, particularly China.  France, Canada and the U.K. Russia, and Japan were also cited as countries that will see a return to growth in advertising expenditure next year.

As the Wall Street Journal indicates, opinions vary among advertising executives as to when and to what extent growth will return to the advertising industry.

As E-consultancy notes, these are interesting times for advertisers, agencies and publishers/media companies, highlighting the questions that now remain about just how far online advertising can go and the main opportunities for growth going forwards – key issues for the future of the creative economy that will be addressed at the c&binet forum next month.