Weekly new and digital media story 2

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/dec/01/gadget-obsessed-uk-top-digital-advertising-spend

UK set to be first country in which more than half of ad spend goes digital

More than 50% of £15.7bn advertiser spend will go on digital and online media in 2015 beating print, cinema, buses, billboards, TV and radio combined

The UK is predicted to become the first country in the world where more than half of all advertising spend goes to digital media – thanks to a national obsession with gadgets, social media and online shopping.

Group M, the worldwide media buying arm of the market services company WPP, has forecast that the total UK ad market will hit £15.7bn in 2015. Within this online spend is forecast to grow 12.7% year-on-year to break the £8bn mark, making the UK the first in which more than £1 in every £2 of ad spend will go on digital media.

Next year more money will be spent on internet advertising than in traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, TV, cinema, radio, and billboards, posters and buses combined.

According to Group M paid search advertising will grow to £4.2bn, with about 29% of that on mobile devices, most of which is hoovered up by Google, which has more than 90% share of the UK market.

The fastest-growing part of the internet market is display advertising, which is forecast to surge 20% next year to £2.7bn, with 39% of that mobile display advertising.

The next closest countries likely to reach the milestone are Sweden (47% of total ad spend will be digital), Denmark (43%), Australia (42%) and Norway (40%).

• Group M is forecasting that more than £160m in print advertising will be lost from the UK newspaper market next year.

• National newspaper advertising is predicted to decline 8.3% to £908m next year, and £80m year-on-year fall.

• Regional newspapers are expected to see a 9.1% fall in print ad revenues to £820m, a fall of £82m year-on-year.

In my opinion this highlights the massive impact new and digital media is having on society and advertisers realise that online is now the best place to advertise their products.

This links to the issue of newspaper funding and constant losses, as advertisers no longer see newspapers as a major form of media in which they can advertise their rpoducts due to the decline of print media, causing newspapers to make constant losses and proven by the fact that broadsheets are predicted to lose 160m in print advertising due to advertisers faouring the internet. 

I think that this is further evidence that the only way newspapers can hope to survive is to move online and possibly scrap the print format entirely as it is not economically viable, and the only way they can gain income from advertising is if they move online, which would result in more ads, in addition to possibly adding a paywall like some institutions have done such as The Times.