“Traditional advertising has suffered hugely during the pandemic, due to stay-at-home orders and the cancellation of large sporting events,” said Bill Fisher, eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence. “Digital, meanwhile, has offered the biggest captive audience and an easy and cost-effective route to consumers. Spend on traditional media will rebound once some semblance of normalcy returns next year, but it’s unlikely to reach pre-pandemic levels.”
After making very significant downward revisions across traditional media channels due to the effects of COVID-19, we expect traditional media ad spending to fall 22.6% in 2020. This estimate is based upon the assumption that the UK will not experience a significant second wave of infections.
As a result of the coronavirus, out-of-home (OOH) advertising was the most negatively affected medium, with growth revised down from our previous forecast by 26.3 percentage points. That was followed closely by radio, revised down by 22.0 percentage points.