• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 11, 2014

The newest advertising medium is about to overtake the oldest, at least in Britain, where mobile advertising spending will surpass newspaper ad spending this year, according to a new forecast from eMarketer -- although that’s at least as much a reflection of newspapers’ continuing woes as it is mobile’s bright prospects.
 
In the new report, eMarketer predicts mobile advertising revenues in the UK will jump 90% from £1.19 billion ($1.86 billion) in 2013 to £2.26 billion ($3.53 billion) in 2014. Over the same period, eMarketer expects newspaper ad revenues in the UK to fall 4.5% from £2.2 billion to £2.1 billion. Looking further ahead, newspaper ad revenues will fall to £1.9 billion in 2017.
 
In terms of advertising market share, newspapers will fall from 15.3% of all UK media spending in 2013 to 13.8% in 2014, then 11.2% by 2017, while mobile will jump from 8.4% in 2013 to 15.1% in 2014, and 31.1% by 2017.
 
According to eMarketer, total UK digital media ad spending will increase from £6.3 billion in 2013 to £7.1 billion this year; in terms of market share, that’s an increase from 44.3% to 47.5%. The consultancy expects total digital spending to increase to £9 billion, or 53.8% market share, by 2017.

Within these figures, mobile’s share will soar from 19% of total digital spending in 2013 to 57.9% of digital spending in 2017.
 
Other traditional media in the UK won’t fare quite as badly as newspapers, but they appear to be far from dynamic. TV advertising will tick up from £3.6 billion to £3.7 billion from 2013-2014, although that will translate into a small decrease in market share, from 25.6% to 24.7%. UK radio ad spending will basically remain flat, with market share edging down from 2.3% to 2.2%. Outdoor ad spending will also stagnate at around £1 billion, with market share slipping from 7% to 6.9%.
 
In keeping with these figures, eMarketer predicts that UK mobile ad spending will surpass TV ad spending in 2016 to become the single biggest ad medium by 2017.

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