Skip to main content

Worldwide TV Ad Spend will Reach $236 Billion in 2020

The transition to digital marketing is still a huge challenge for many legacy marketers, so when they gain access to additional budget they choose to spend it on media that's within their comfort-zone. For those with a traditional media buyer mind-set, that often translates into spending more on television advertising.

Global TV advertising expenditure will reach $236 billion in 2020, up by 38 percent ($64 billion) from 2013 and up by 54 percent ($82 billion) on 2010, according to the latest market study by Digital TV Research.

Regardless of the relatively poor ROI performance, TV ad spend is expected to grow by 4.0 percent in 2014 for the 55 countries covered in the study -- and that's better than the 2.2 percent recorded in 2013.

"Positives for TV advertising in 2014 include World Cup soccer in Brazil and economic improvement in much of Europe. However, not all countries have fully recovered economically. Devaluation is a factor in some markets, such as Venezuela. In addition, internal conflicts in countries such as Israel, Thailand and the Ukraine have damaged the advertising industry," said Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research.

TV advertising expenditure will double in Latin America and the Middle East & Africa between 2010 and 2020. Excluding deflation-hit Japan, net TV advertising in Asia Pacific is forecast to more than double between 2010 and 2020.

However, TV advertising spend in Western Europe will only be 26 percent higher in 2020 than in 2010. TV advertising in Western Europe fell in both 2012 and 2013, with 2.7 percent growth expected in 2014.

The 2010 total will not be bettered until 2015. Excluding the booming Russian market, TV advertising in Eastern Europe will fall in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The 2011 total will only be surpassed in 2018.

From the $64.4 billion TV ad spend to be added between 2013 and 2020, $22.6 billion (35 percent) will come from the U.S. market, followed by an extra $7.9 billion from China, $3.7 billion from Brazil and $3.1 billion from Japan.

The U.S. will remain the global TV advertising market leader by some way. China overtook Japan to take second place in 2013. TV ad spend will more than double in Brazil between 2010 and 2020, with Russia also nearly doubling. However, Italy, hit even harder by the recession, has dropped dramatically and will not recover to the 2010 total by 2020.

According to the DTV Research assessment, multi-channel TV advertising expenditure will nearly double to $67.5 billion between 2010 and 2020. The U.S. market will contribute $35.2 billion to the 2020 total, followed someway behind by the Pan-Arab channels with $5.5 billion.

Moreover, free-to-air TV advertising expenditure will increase by 34 percent between 2010 and 2020 to $168 billion.

Popular posts from this blog

AI Supercycle: Server Market Growth Surge

The worldwide server market has entered a new phase defined almost entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure economics rather than traditional enterprise refresh cycles.   The latest market data shows robust growth and a structural shift in where value is created, who captures it, and which architectures are setting the pace for the next decade. IDC reports that worldwide server revenue reached a record $112.4 billion in the third quarter of 2025, representing a striking 61 percent year-over-year increase compared to the same quarter in 2024. For context, this means the market is adding tens of billions of dollars in incremental quarterly spend, driven overwhelmingly by AI and accelerated computing requirements.  IT Server Market Development Over the first three quarters of 2025, server revenue has already reached $314.2 billion, meaning the market has nearly doubled in size compared to 2024, underscoring how AI buildouts have compressed several years of exp...