In its 2024 U.S. Local Advertising Forecast, BIA Advisory Services estimates revenues across all media in the U.S. will reach $175.6 billion next year. The projected growth of 8.6 percent is said to primarily be due to the political season.
Radio’s projected slice makes up 7.9 percent of that revenue pie.
BIA’s projections are split up into two categories: Traditional Media Revenue and Digital Media Revenue. For traditional media revenue, over-the-air radio is expected to bring in 6.2 percent of 2024 ad revenue in that sector. For digital media revenue, radio is expected to account for 1.7 percent of that share.
In a press release, BIA notes that the split between traditional and digital advertising shows that digital has a slightly smaller share, 48 percent, of the overall advertising spend at $84.1 billion. Traditional media ad revenue is slated at 52 percent of the ad spend at $91.5 billion.
Commenting on the ad split, Nicole Ovadia, VP of forecasting and analysis at BIA, said, “Digital isn’t growing as fast as it once was. Meta, Alphabet and others lowered their advertising revenue expectations several times throughout 2023, which in turn has caused us to reflect these reductions in the digital ad spend we track across 96 business categories.”
BIA’s most recent projection for 2023, updated in June, is that radio’s over-the-air and digital revenue combined will total $13.2 billion this year, with about 21% of that from digital/online.
BIA said this year’s 8.6 percent projected increase over 2023 is slightly shadowed by concerns of an economic downturn and overall lower ad spending. With the forecasted political revenues removed, BIA’s projection in 2024 is $164.6 billion in total local advertising, only a 2.2 percent increase in local advertising year-over-year.
For the top three fastest-growing categories year-over-year, political advertising takes the top spot with a 2,028.3 percent increase in ad spending. Special restaurants and realtors trail behind with a 17.2 percent and 16.7 percent increase, respectively.
[Related: “BIA Trims Back Its Industry Ad Projection for 2023“]
