Australian TV advertising drops 8% in 2023

Spend on TV advertising in Australia is down across the board, according to new figures from ThinkTV, but broadcaster video on demand (BVOD) growth points to green digital shoots.

Why TV spending matters

TV has been critical to the history of 20^th century advertising, but linear television is losing some viewers around the world and a lot of the brand spending that follows them.

The reasons for this are numerous and complex: audiences are adapting and looking to other platforms for their entertainment, while many brands are either spending less in response to rising costs or optimising their budgets to other media, mostly online formats. However, the problem of achieving reach continues to grow.

What's happening

According to ThinkTV, Australia’s trade body for commercial television, the 2023 financial year has been tough on the medium.

Over the course of the year:

• Commercial free-to-air spending dropped 7.9% to $3.6bn.
• Metropolitan free-to-air dropped 10.6% to $2.5bn.
• Regional free-to-air dropped 4.7% to $646m.
• BVOD, meanwhile, grew 6.1% to $392m.

“It has been a challenging 12 months for advertisers, broadcasters, and consumers alike which is reflected in these figures,” said ThinkTV CEO Kim Portrate in a statement. “Yet, despite the economic headwinds the wider industry faces, BVOD growth continues.”

The study echoes some of the trends elsewhere in Australia’s media ecosystem: in July, internal documents at the publicly funded ABC showed the deep skew toward older audiences for linear channels. In response, the broadcaster, like many others, is pivoting hard to digital channels.

But building a digital advertising business around TV content isn’t easy to do, and buying (let alone measuring) media across many more platforms is difficult for brands, too.

Sourced from ThinkTV, WARC