• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 7, 2020

Consumer spending on media grew 4.3% in 2019, which is slightly slower than the 4.9% that advertising and marketing spending on media grew last year, according to estimates released this morning from media industry economists PQ Media.

Those growth rates, which are derived from two separate reports -- one released today on consumer spending and one released late last year on advertising and marketing spending -- nonetheless show consumers now outspend the ad industry by a margin of nearly three to two, which reflects the continued shift from ad-supported to consumer-supported models for media.

Global per capita spending on media hit $337.22 in 2019, an increase of 3.5% from 2018.

In the U.S., the trend line of consumer spending growth is even more pronounced, with per capital spending reaching $1,334.34 in 2018, an increase of 1.5% from 2017. PQ Media did not release U.S. estimates for 2019.