The Irish media industry should be bracing itself for another difficult year in 2018 with total media spend by advertisers forecast to fall to €719m according to GroupM. This compares to the estimated outturn of €722m in 2017 and represents a 0.4% decrease year-on-year.
According to GroupM’s “The 2018 Media Marketplace,” digital spend is expected to increase by 6% to €226m in 2018- representing around 31.4% of total spend. Of this, €121m is likely to be spent on search while €105m will be on display advertising, including the likes of Facebook and social media platforms.
TV and out-of-home (OOH) are the only other media that are likely to see growth in 2018, according to GroupM’s forecasts.
TV’s slice of the advertising pie is likely to rise to €177m in 2018, up from €173m in 2017 but still some way off the €186m that was spent in 2016. OOH, meanwhile, is also likely to grow by around 2% from €79m in 2017 to €81m in 2018.
But it’s not good news for national and regional newspaper publishers and Ireland’s radio sector, according to the GroupM forecasts. The biggest drop off in advertising spend will be felt by newspaper groups with a 10.2% decline from €164m in 2017 to a forecast €147m in 2018. Of this, national newspaper groups account for all of this drop with spend set to drop from €128m in 2017 to €112m this year. Putting this in context, the GroupM notes that advertising spend in national newspapers amounted to €240m in 2012 and if its forecast for 2018 come through, a staggering €128m has been lost to the national newspaper market in the space of six years.
Radio, meanwhile, could also be in for a choppy ride with a 6% decline to €66m being pencilled in. This compares with €73m in 2012.
Elsewhere, magazine advertising is likely to remain at around €16m for the year according to GroupM while cinema advertising will also remain unchanged at €7m.
“Overall, across the various media and categories, we can see that advertising demand is down 5% n Ireland in 2017. As uncertainty remains, largely due to the insecurity over Brexit and the subsequent exchange rate impact which hits all client budgets that originate in sterling, advertisers are cautious in their spending,” notes GroupM. “While the shadow of the recession fades to almost a decade behind us, the learnings of both advertisers and consumers remain steadfast as cost control and budget management hold strong in their minds and advertisers are focussing on value and return on investment.
“As such, the more transparent and accountable media, those which are most able to demonstrate the data in reporting back to advertisers on their own effectiveness, are those seeing growth- namely TV and digital. Similarly, Out-of-Home is seeing some growth as it continues to develop in line with consumption of media by increasing digitisation of its formats, along with its successful interaction and integration with other media. Into 2018, customers will continue to consume media in a multi-format, cross-platform way and it is the media that adapt and engage with this trend that will continue to see their revenues improve year-on-year.”
