Magazines

Online ad spending around the world is projected to grow by 13.4% to reach $113.6 billion this year, according to a revised forecast issued by MAGNA GLOBAL that takes a more bullish view of online spending this year than its previous forecast. Another new forecast, from ZenithOptimedia, projects a 15% annual increase in online spending between this year and 2015. Both groups see strong growth for social and mobile advertising around the world. Read more »

PwC has issued its annual "Entertainment & Media Outlook" report, which contains projections for online and offline media markets through 2017 across various components including advertising revenues and consumer spending. The outlook for traditional media markets is similar to previous forecasts in that TV and out-of-home advertising have the healthiest future, while radio continues to grow at a modest pace and the outlook for print continues to be dim, although losses may slow. Read more »

In conjunction with a new monthly e-commerce tracking initiative, Shopzilla has released research from a survey of online shoppers conducted immediately after their purchases from the Bizrate Insights Network of more than 5,200 e-commerce retailers in the US and Canada. The data shows that buyers were most likely to have first seen their most recent online purchase while surfing around online (29%) or when looking to find something specific (25%). Beyond those top 2 points of inspiration, store emails (11%) emerged as a key source, cited by more respondents than magazines (8%), ads (6%), blogs and other web content sites (4%). Read more »

The US advertising market is quite heavily affected by political spending and the Olympics (P&O), with TV particularly influenced by cyclical P&O spending, according to [download page] the latest forecast from MAGNA GLOBAL. The researcher estimates that ad spending on core media will inch forward by 0.4% this year, but that growth is a more robust 2.4% when excluding P&O revenues. That disparity also means that TV revenues will decline by 2.8% this year, but otherwise be up by 1.9% when excluding the P&O impact. Next year, when P&O spending is back in play, the advertising market will rebound, growing by 5.9%, and fueled by an 8.9% expansion in TV revenues. Read more »

By 2015, the internet should account for 23.4% of global ad spending, details Zenith Optimedia in a new forecast. That's up more than 5% points from last year's 18%, and comes at the expense of almost all traditional media, none of which are slated to see any growth in share of spending. TV's share will remain flat, at about 40%, as will cinema's (at just 0.6%), but newspapers, magazines, radio, and outdoor will see varying levels of declining share. Print, as expected, will be hardest hit: newspapers and magazines are the only media forecast to see a decline in expenditures. Read more »

Smartphones and tablets are accounting for a rapidly increasing proportion of digital video starts, according to "The State of Mobile Benchmark" [pdf] from Adobe Digital Index. In Q4 2012, these devices accounted for a combined 10.4% of video starts, more than triple their 3.1% share from just a year earlier. Both device types boosted their share of starts, with tablets (6.5% vs. 1.8%) shooting ahead of smartphones (3.9% vs. 1.3%). Video view rates also saw strong growth. Read more »

Traditional media continue to dominate global advertising spending, and most show no signs of falling off for the time being, according to new data released by Nielsen. TV, which commands the lion's share of global ad budgets, saw a 4.3% increase in expenditures for the year, reaching $350 billion. Cinema, radio, and outdoor saw growth rate above the 3.2% overall average, up 5.8%, 6.1%, and 7.7%, respectively. And while magazines (-1.6%) and newspapers (-0.2%) saw slight declines in spending, they still accounted for more than one-quarter of global spending. Read more »

The number of mobile activations in the US' top 100 magazines by circulation has grown from just 352 in Q1 2011 to 2,252 in Q4 2012, details Nellymoser [download page] in a new report. Besides the growth in action code use, the study also reveals some interesting shifts in their deployment, growing editorial engagement and use of image-based technologies. For example, roughly 17.6% of mobile activations appeared on editorial pages during 2012. In December 2011, there were 25 advertising codes for each editorial code. Read more »

Consumer magazine ad revenue (print only) grew by 0.5% year-over-year in Q1 2013 to reach $4.13 billion, according to recent data from the Association of Magazine Media (MPA). While ad revenue for Sunday magazines declined by 3.7%, that was not enough to offset the increase for consumer magazines, leading to overall ad revenue edging up by 0.2%. The increase came despite pronounced ad page declines of 4.8% for consumer magazines and 8.2% for Sunday magazines. Read more »

64% of Americans rank watching TV (on any device) as one of their top-3 media activities, down from a high of 71% in 2009 and 2010 but enough to keep TV viewing as America's favorite media activity, according to Deloitte. TV is tops for all generations except trailing Millennials (14-23), who prefer personal and social use of the internet as well as listening to music. The survey also reveals that for many trailing and leading (24-29) Millennials, videogames are not only a top activity, but an important advertising influence. Read more »