PORTLAND, ORE. — Madison and Wall media advertising expert Brian Wieser has great things to share about the remainder of 2024. “[Y]et again the industry produced a dramatic outperformance versus our (and, frankly, anyone else’s reasonable) expectations,” he concludes.
But, the end of the rainbow that was the past 12 months will be followed by gloomy skies for ad dollars, Wieser shares.
A THIRD QUARTER TO REMEMBER
While the “unexpected strength of the advertising market has been remarkable,” the bubble is about to burst.
But, before one looks at 2025, a review of Q3 2024 is warranted. Why? Because it was spectacular.
“While we previously anticipated ex-political ad revenue growth in [the third quarter] of 6.0%, our analysis indicates that the quarter came out with a 9.6% gain instead,” Wieser says. “With a roughly similar growth rate to the one observed in Q2 and Q1, this is a remarkable pace to sustain considering the very difficult comparables that existed in the year-ago period and the relatively easy comparables that existed in the first part of 2023.”
Digital was huge, which isn’t a surprise. But national television shattered Wieser’s expectations, with ex-political revenue rising by a stunning 11.3%, versus his original 3.7% forecast. That’s thanks to the Olympics, NFL games shifting into Q3, and overall market dynamics.
Enjoy it while you can, TV industry leaders. “The underlying declines in share we expected are continuing for national TV,” Wieser says.
NO TRUMP-BUMP FOR AD DOLLARS
Looking toward 2025 with at least some clarity about what Brendan Carr, President Trump and Congress will bring to the table, “it seems highly likely that its policies could have a significant impact on the U.S. advertising industry next year and beyond,” Wieser believes.
Yet, he concludes, “We are inclined to believe that policies more likely-than-not to take effect are net negative for the U.S. advertising market.”
Yes, “very difficult” comparables to 2024 are a factor. Nevertheless, Madison and Wall’s full-year forecast for 2025, excluding political advertising, is reduced to 4.5% growth versus 5.3% previously.
Wieser also offered in-depth insight into where National TV dollars are trending. “We think that National TV (including national broadcast networks, cable networks, syndication and all nationally oriented sellers of Connected TV) will end up growing around 0.3% in 2024,” he concludes. Next year, pharmaceutical advertising on broadcast TV is in question, due to rumors and suggestions as to the Trump Administration’s regulatory policy on such messaging. If Pharma is threatened for TV, that’s not good. As such, Wieser says, “It’s hard to be overly precise on the impact at this time, but some kind of negative impact should be assumed as 2025 progresses. In our model, we now forecast a 6.1% ex-political decline in National TV advertising next year.”
Still, Amazon and Netflix won’t be impacted in any way, with respect to ad dollar generation.
Local TV “should face many similar headwinds,” although the impact of any restrictions on pharmaceutical advertising will be minimal as most of these companies are National advertisers, Wieser says. “To some degree, traditionally local broadcasters have opportunity to experience growth from bringing their smaller clients to national platforms with Connected TV-based sales, and this should be incrementally positive.”
In total, Madison and Wall forecasts -3.5% ex-political decline for local TV next year, similar to the -3.3% pace it expects for all of 2024. “Including political in any growth figure results in significant volatility: we expect a -27% decline on this basis for 2025 following 28% growth in 2024,” he says. “In terms of the digital / non-digital mix, we forecast that digital extensions of local broadcasters’ ad sales will rise from 19% in 2024 to 22% in 2025.”
DIGITAL AUDIO ON THE RISE IN ’25
