Study: Digital growing fast, but TV ain't dead yet

Dive Brief:

A new global ad spending forecast by Carat, the media network owned by Dentsu Aegis, projects that advertising spend worldwide will grow 4.4% this year to reach $548.2 billion, with North America boasting 5% growth in ad spending over the last year.
The report found that while digital continues to grow fast, linear TV isn't going anywhere: Digital is expected to grow 15.6% this year and 13.6% next year to reach an overall 30.2% share of global media spend by 2017. Meanwhile, TV will grow much more slowly (2.3% growth rate next year) but will still hold 40.3% of overall media spend in 2017.
“Not to discount digital by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ve seen somewhat of a resurgence of what’s going on with linear TV," Andy Donchin, chief investment officer at Dentsu Aegis Network, told Ad Exchanger. According to Donchin, budgets are moving back to TV because of underwhelming ROI figures and ad inventory in digital for some marketers.

Dive Insight:

Almost every ad spending forecast predicts that digital will surpass TV, but many debate when exactly that may happen. Some reports suggest it could happen this year or next, with digital growing at a much faster clip than TV.

In some ways, the two channels are converging with the growth of digital live streams, both on social media and on platforms run by the TV networks. Video ads becoming a key part of digital advertising strategies, particularly for mobile, while linear TV is becoming more like digital marketing with many providers offering programmatic inventory and targeting to set-top boxes.

While digital continues to grow, TV remains the biggest channel for ad agencies, according to recent research reported by eMarketer. 49% of U.S. ad agency professionals report their clients are most interested in spot TV and cable, followed by digital at 31%. While that report found that TV spending is still expected to exceed digital this year, the channels are forecasted to flip by 2020, with $105.21 billion in spending for digital and $77.17 billion for TV.