The Great Pandemic, as Gordon Borrell of Borrell Associates calls it, “delivered the kick in the pants that many companies needed to re-energize digital initiatives.”
A just-released research report chronicles the growth and shrinkage within the local advertising industry and offers insights and benchmarks for local media companies trying to navigate that landscape with their digital initiatives.
Local media emerged from the pandemic with a sharper focus on digital initiatives and a new drive to sell more. This year, they’re on track to capture $12 billion in digital revenue, stealing market share from the big pureplay companies for the first time in 15 years, Borrell notes.
How much of the $92 billion spent on local digital advertising is being kept in-market by media companies, what types of digital advertising is being sold, and who’s getting it?
The report provides answers across some 45 charts and tables, including benchmarking data that measures digital revenue performance for TV stations, local cable systems, daily and weekly newspapers, and radio stations.
Two appendices list ad-spending estimates for 513 U.S. markets for 2021 and 2022, including estimates of local media’s Obtainable Digital Revenue in each market.
What do the overall trends look like?
Radio/TV/Cable are down. And, shockingly, the combined ad category isn’t that much better than print media.
Meanwhile, OOH is growing, as has been reported.
The digital growth? After a pause due to the pandemic, it’s rocketing ahead.
