Fueled by stronger than anticipated digital advertising results, respected Wall Street financial analysts at MoffettNathanson are raising its 2021 overall U.S. ad growth estimate.
This will be partially offset by lower than expected broadcast and cable advertising.
But, what do the radio advertising trends look like? Senior Analyst Michael Nathanson offers a few details.
First, he offers estimates for radio’s year-over-year growth.
The good news? Improvements from the COVID-19 pandemic will be seen.
The bad news? Will those improvements meet or exceed FY 2019 revenue results?
Full-year radio industry ad revenue is expected to come in $12.89 billion, rising 1% from $12.76 billion in FY 2020.
That may seem tepid, but a comparison to local TV stations presents a much different picture: Radio’s 2020 electoral dollar boost wasn’t as impactful to the P&L sheet as that for over-the-air television.
Indeed, political ad dollars greatly impacted broadcast TV advertising results in 2020. As such, MoffettNathanson is forecasting a 6.4% drop in FY 2021 for OTA TV ad revenue, dipping to $21.62 billion from $23.1 billion.
These numbers pale in comparison to online ad revenue. MoffettNathanson predicts a 33% year-over-year rise in 2021 for those ad dollars, to a stunning $158.51 billion from $119.29 billion.
MoffettNathanson also provided a long-term peek at radio industry advertising revenue trends.
It’s not pretty. Comparing 2019 full-year results to 2025 full-year estimates, total radio advertising revenue is forecast to fall 24.3%.
By comparison, TV dollars (a total amount, inclusive of all television ad dollars) are forecast to grow by 4.1% between 2019 and the end of 2025.
Online dollar growth is forecast at 51.7%.
