We’ve reached peak media consumption

Time spent with media across digital and traditional formats peaked last year. The 2024 GMI results showed a plateauing of consumption in the 11 media formats measured.

Globally, time spent with media had slight declines across the board in 2024 (the only exception was mobile, which was flat). Most of the annual percentage declines in major categories were in the single digits, which doesn’t materially change the calculus for media mix planning and budget allocations.

Time spent with mobile devices worldwide saw no change YoY. This year, more countries saw growth in time spent with mobile devices than saw declines. Previously, negative and positive growth rates were more widely distributed across countries. That has given way to YoY change rates that are more similar—a plateau that reflects the fact that users are hitting a ceiling for engagement with mobile content.

Overall, a convergence of average daily media time is evident at the regional level across the globe. However, outliers do exist (e.g., Japan for lower consumption, Brazil for higher). Despite disparities in relative wealth at the country level (GMI results were compared with IMF GDP-per-capita metrics), similar patterns were seen for time spent with digital media and traditional formats in most countries.

Some regions have long-standing unique patterns. For example, broadcast TV consumption in North America was 2 hours and 46 minutes (2:46) daily, almost a full hour more than the global average (most of that number reflects heavy consumption in the US). Latin America overindexed in time spent with social media/messaging at 3:25 daily, 65 minutes more than the global average. And respondents in East Asia and Oceania spent significantly less time daily with desktops/laptops/tablets than every other region, at 1:29 daily; it was less than half the time spent in many regions in the GMI.

What does the peak in time spent with media mean?

Peak media doesn’t mean these channels are becoming less effective in reaching audiences. It reflects a proliferation of media options and more fragmented engagement with media in general. However, individual channels have become less effective in isolation, making holistic targeting across formats the best way to engage audiences in a range of contexts.

Read the full report, The Global Media Intelligence Report 2024.