‘Survival of the fittest’ for Irish television channels in 2015, says Accenture

The Irish television advertising market will rise by about 5-6 per cent this year, but even with this growth it will be a case of "survival of the fittest" for broadcasters, according to a forecast by Accenture Media Management Ireland.

"With the first couple of months traditionally quiet in terms of ad spend, advertisers will likely wait and see how UTV Ireland performs before they commit to any sizeable chunks of spend," says Accenture's Grace Gallagher, who heads the media management practice.

Although the Irish television market is used to a glut of "opt-out" channels that replace UK-sold advertisements with Irish ones, the gradual erosion of market share this caused was "no real threat" to the survival of the indigenous stations RTÉ, TV3 and TG4, Ms Gallagher says.

The UTV threat, on the other hand, is real. “UTV Ireland could be a game changer because it is focused on this market and therefore directly presents challenges to both RTÉ and TV3 simultaneously.”

The overall Irish advertising sector recorded a return to growth in 2014 and this trend is likely to continue across most mediums, but competition between media owners for share of marketing budgets will also increase.

While the battle for advertisers’ custom will be most intense in television, competition will also be tough in the radio sector, Ms Gallagher says. Advertising spending on the medium will grow 3 per cent year on year, she predicts.

There will be “modest” growth in the out-of-home sector after a bounceback for the medium in 2014.

Growth

deceleration Digital will once again record the highest rises in advertising spend in 2015, although there was a slight deceleration in the rate of growth last year.

“When we consider that digital is set to take 50 per cent of all ad spend in the UK in 2015 and we’re just topping 30 per cent in Ireland, we anticipate it will remain the fastest growing medium in this country for some time to come, with at least double-digit growth again in 2015.”

However, the continued oversupply of digital inventory as well as lower mobile costs will once again limit inflation in digital ad prices, according to Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.

Spending on print advertising will increase slightly in 2015, buoyed by growth in recruitment and property advertising, Accenture forecasts. But with print readership in decline the respite is likely to be a brief one, it cautions, with the longer-term trend for print advertising revenue remaining one of decline.