Hello and welcome to the Quarter 1 2015 edition of Tickertape.
As we approach the General Election in May, the UK's economic recovery remains on track. Inflation is non-existent, unemployment is still falling, GDP continues to grow and finally wage growth appears to be out-stripping the cost of living. But what will be the effect of global economic machinations? How will the slowing of China's economic growth, the situations in Russia, Greece and the Middle East and most significantly the oil price crash effect the UK?
Whatever the answer to these questions is, it would appear that the shifting sands of global economics are having little impact on UK marketers' budgets. We predict that most media markets will see revenue growth of 5-10% in 2015. As has been the theme for several years now both internet and print spends buck this trend. Online revenue is set to increase by 12.7% this year, whilst at the other extreme spend on newspaper and magazine advertising is expected to drop by c. 8%.
Despite some disappointing audience figures in 2014, the AV market continues to thrive, with spend set to grow by 6%. However, after years of debate around the subject, have we finally reached the tipping point when the migration of linear TV audiences to on-demand services starts to reduce the amount of money spent by advertisers on TV? Our revenue figures suggest not, but what is for sure is that it's ever more important that advertisers are reaching viewers through all possible routes and not just broadcast TV.
The travails of the Publishing sector have been well documented in Tickertape over the past few years, however impressive levels of innovation have sprung from this adversity. In this edition, we look at one example in Trinity Mirror, and how they are looking to reinvent themselves in a difficult climate. On a similar note, whilst the Radio market is in good health we have looked at how Bauer Media have restructured their local radio offering in response to the requirements of both listeners and advertisers.
The term 'Programmatic' continues to dominate all things digital, and in our Online Display section this quarter one of our Programmatic buying experts Sohel Modi looks to add some clarity to the debate as well as debunking some myths about the subject. Meanwhile, last December's retail 'Black Friday' seems to have been the point at which Mobile e-commerce came of age, we've looked at some of the reasons why.
We have also added Paid Social to the range of media we look at within Tickertape and have included an introduction to this rapidly growing market.
As ever, if you have any questions about the content within Tickertape, please do not hesitate to contact one of the Exchange experts for more information.