The trend over the past several years has been growth in both digital (online) ad spend, and television ads. The digital ad spend, however, has been out pacing TV ad growth, and slowly catching up. Everyone knew that eventually digital would pass TV ad spend in the US, but most people didn’t expect it to be until 2017 according to most recent predictions.
According to new data from eMarketer, however, this milestone could very well occur before the end of this year.
By the end of the year, digital ads are predicted to reach $72.09 billion, whereas US TV ads will bring in $71.29 billion.
An eMarketer spokesperson said about this report, “That means digital will represent 36.8% of total U.S. media spending, while TV will represent 36.4%.”
What is perhaps most impressive about this is that it happened this year, which had two huge television based events. The Rio Olympics, which took place this year and boosted TV ad spend quite significantly was one of the major events. The other is the US election. News conferences, debates, controversy’s, and all the other drama that comes from the US political system is in full swing this year, and much of that boost goes to the TV vertical.
Even with all of that, however, digital looks like it will be able to surpass TV in ad spend.
The news isn’t all bad for TV, however, as the total ad spend for television continues to climb at a healthy pace.
