Irish advertising down 7% despite global surge

THE ADVERTISING market in Ireland fell 7 per cent last year at a time when advertising revenues surged globally, according to a new report on the entertainment and media industry by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Advertising revenues in Ireland arrived at $1.23 billion (€90 million), according to PwC’s annual Global Entertainment and Media Outlook.

PwC forecast that the Irish advertising market would be flat this year, before returning to “modest growth” in 2012, but it does not foresee a return over the next five years to the advertising revenue peaks of 2006 to 2008.

By contrast, the global advertising market rebounded almost 6 per cent last year after recording an 11 per cent slump in 2009, and will grow at more than twice the rate of the Irish market between now and 2015, according to PwC.

Although the entertainment and media industry has entered a “golden age” of “digitally empowered” consumers, the Irish market will lag the global recovery in spending across the industry, the accountancy firm forecast.

The overall entertainment and media industry in Ireland was worth $4.26 billion last year, down slightly on 2009. It will be worth $5 billion by 2015.

The key areas of growth in the Irish market will be in digital platforms, PwC said. Traditional advertising platforms will experience lower levels of growth over the five-year period, with some platforms, such as newspaper advertising, only returning to “minor growth” in 2013.

“Disruptive technologies and innovative approaches to content generation and distribution will continue to emerge, and Ireland needs to do all it can to encourage and support companies and ideas in this area given the opportunities that exist on a global scale,” said Bartley O’Connor, from PwC’s entertainment and media practice.

The increase in spending on internet access in Ireland has not been affected by the recession and is expected to continue growing at double-digit rates over the next five years, PwC said.

Globally, spending on digital platforms will account for about a third of all spending in the market by 2015, having already reached 26 per cent.

In advertising, the internet will overtake newspapers next year to become the second-largest platform on a global basis.

Television will remain the largest advertising platform, buoyed by both its association with internet usage and major sporting events such as the London 2012 Olympics.