Rise of Digital Advertising and Growth of Podcasts Signal a Rapidly Changing Media - Horowitz
Tuesday, August 03, 2021
More money is now spent in this nation on digital advertising than on television and print advertising and the audience for online podcasts is growing, while the radio audience is beginning to decline. As news, information and entertainment continues to expand online and decline in more traditional formats, these are among the most telling trends outlined in Pew Research Center’s recently released top takeaways about the state of the news media in 2020.
Nearly 2-out-of-3( 63%) advertising dollars were spent digitally in 2020, according to eMarketer estimates. That added up to more than $150 billion devoted to digital advertising in 2020 alone—a $20 billion increase from the year before. For each of the past 3 years, digital has taken an increasing and now dominant slice of the advertising pie, jumping from 49% in 2018 to 55% in 2019 to 63% in 2020. All indications are that this growth will continue both as a share of the advertising market and in absolute dollars.
An exponential increase in mobile advertising is driving the emerging dominance of digital advertising. “Between 2011 and 2020, mobile advertising revenue increased roughly sixtyfold, from $1.7 billion in 2011 to $102.6 billion in 2020,” Pew reported. “Desktop advertising revenue increased from $30.3 billion to $40.6 billion over the same time period. In 2020, mobile advertising revenue comprised two-thirds of digital advertising revenue on mobile and desktop devices, up from 5% in 2011.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTIn another revealing—if less pronounced trend-- the audience for podcasts continues to grow, while radio listening, which had plateaued, staying roughly the same over the past few years, declined in 2020. The audience for Podcasts has increased about 4-fold over the past decade or so. “As of 2021, 41% of Americans ages 12 or older have listened to a podcast in the past month, according to “The Infinite Dial” report by Edison Research and Triton Digital, up from 37% in 2020 and just 9% in 2008,” detailed Pew
NPR is a case in point, according to Pew, noting that its “weekly podcast audience nearly doubled over the past two years, from about 7 million in 2018 to about 14 million in 2020.” NPR derives more sponsor underwriting revenue now from its podcasts than its radio shows.
On the other hand, AM/FM radio listenership declined from 89% of Americans 12 and over in 2019 to 83% in 2020, according to Nielsen data, referenced by Pew. In 2009, more than 9-in-10 Americans listened to the radio. At least some of the decline last year can probably be attributed to the large reduction in commuting due to the pandemic, as many people do listen to the radio in their cars. But with working remotely at least some of the time becoming a permanent feature of life going forward for a substantial percentage of Americans, the amount of commuting time and related radio listening is unlikely to bounce all the way back.
Digital grabbing the lion’s share of advertising dough and the rise of online podcasts underscore an over-all media and information system in which we all get to select our own content options from a seemingly endless array of possibilities and as a result the audience continues to fragment. While the rich and often quality information and entertainment available is an undeniable plus, our own all too human predilection to watch and listen to content that confirms and amplifies our existing worldview—to live in our very own media world—makes a national conversation in which we listen to people with whom we may disagree, realize they may have a point or two and then reach principled compromises increasingly difficult.
We have yet to figure out how to use the interactive features of social media and the internet that can enable conversations across geographic boundaries to create a constructive common national dialogue and to root out the disinformation that is all too prevalent. That is the task ahead, so we can turn all that rich information at our fingertips into a constructive tool of democracy that empowers citizens—not a device for further dividing us and spreading falsehoods.
Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
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