UK adspend rises to £18.5bn in best performance for four years

by Jennifer Whitehead, Brand Republic 22-Mar-05, 08:50

LONDON - UK advertising rose by 5.4% last year to £18.4bn, according to the Advertising Association, the biggest rise seen over the past four years.

The figure represents a 4% increase in real terms, when adjusted for inflation, and was compiled by the World Advertising Research Center on behalf of the AA.

It found that the rise in television expenditure rose at the exact rate of the market overall, up by 5.4% to £4.7bn, a rise of 4% in real terms.

Sectors to show growth ahead of the market were: regional newspapers, up 6%; outdoor advertising, up 7.8% to £986m, despite slow growth in the fourth quarter; and cinema advertising sector saw a 6.7% rise to £192m.

Lagging behind was radio advertising, which rose by 3.4% to £604m in current prices, a 2.1% increase in real terms.

The latest estimate for internet advertising expenditure in 2004 is £597m -- an increase of 46.4% in current prices on the previous year, or a 44.5% increase when measured in real terms. This last set of figures incorporates a WARC estimate of full-year Internet Advertising Bureau figures and data from the its survey of online recruitment advertising expenditure.

The AA's figures show that the press remains the biggest sector, account for 47.8% of spend, followed by television, at 25.8% and direct mail, at 13.4%.

Outdoor advertising accounts for 5.4% of all adspend, internet, at 3.2%, is on the verge of taking over from radio, which accounted for 3.3% of spend, and cinema takes a 1% slice of the pie.

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