Media and entertainment on opposing sides of search ad dollar spend growth

Changing content consumption patterns are bending media and entertainment ad spending in different directions. After increasing by double digits every year except 2020, the media industry’s search ad spending will rise by just 7.8% in 2022, and single-digit increases will continue through 2024. 

As recently as 2016, search represented close to half (48.1%) of the media industry’s digital ad spending. In 2022, 39.3% of media’s digital ad spending will go to search, and that figure will drop to 37.6% in 2024. While other industries have also allocated smaller shares of their budgets to search since 2016, only the telecom and computing products/consumer electronics industries will have lowered search’s share of their ad spending as much as media by 2024.

By contrast, the entertainment industry’s search ad spending will grow annually by 15.3%, 15.2%, and 13.0%, respectively, through 2024—after previously growing by more than 12% only twice since we began tracking it in 2016. That growth, however, will not be enough to keep pace with the entertainment industry's spending in other areas: Search's share of entertainment digital ad spending is declining, and will continue to do so, reaching 23% in 2024. 

We define entertainment as businesses offering amusement and recreation, box office, film, music, OTT video platforms, sporting events and ticketing, and video games (excluding video game hardware).

Our definition of media includes establishments primarily engaged in radio and television broadcasting (network and station), including educational, commercial, religious, sports, and other radio or TV stations. It also includes print media (newspapers, magazines, and classifieds) and establishments primarily engaged in publishing.

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