TV advertising spend in the UK tops £5 billion for first time

TV advertising revenue in the UK reached £5.27 billion in 2015, according to figures provided to Thinkbox by the UK commercial TV broadcasters.

This is the sixth consecutive year that TV advertising revenue has grown in the UK.

The figure represents all the money invested by advertisers in commercial TV: linear spot and sponsorship, Broadcaster VOD, and product placement.

Based on data from Nielsen, online businesses invested over £500 million in TV in 2015, an increase of 14% on 2014. Google, Facebook and Netflix spend over 60% of their marketing budgets on TV advertising. While Motors increase TV spend by 18% to £318 million, finance increased by 17% to £428 million, and household FMCG increased by 14% to £199 million. Facebook was last year’s biggest new TV advertiser, investing £10.8 million.

TV advertising is 30% cheaper than 10 years ago

Despite some recent inflation in TV advertising prices due in part to increased advertiser demand and some decline in TV set viewing, in 2015 TV advertising was 30% cheaper in real terms than 10 years ago.

TV advertising at a glance:

• Commercial TV reaches 98.2% of the UK every week (BARB, 2015)
• An average broadcast TV campaign in the UK (of 400 TV ratings) gets 234 million views (BARB, 2015)
• The TV advertiser with the most views across 2015 was 30.5 billion
• TV advertising £ for £ has the highest return on investment with an average of £1.79 profit for every £1 invested (Ebiquity, ‘Payback 4’, 2014)
• 87% of TV in the UK is watched live (BARB, 2015)
• There are 17 million conversations about TV advertising every evening in the UK (BARB/Thinkbox, 2015)

“TV advertising works, it works better than anything else, and it works for all budgets.  Nothing else has TV’s reach, scale and connection with audiences; no other form of advertising is as trusted. Online businesses in particular recognize the impact TV advertising has and have significantly increased their investment recently. This is something we expect to continue in 2016” said Lindsey Clay Chief Executive of Thinkbox.

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