Asia Pacific overhauls Western Europe in TV advertising
14 May 2010
Signs of changing times are here with data revealing that TV advertising revenue in the Asia Pacific region overtook that in Western Europe for the first time last year. This comes hard on the heels of other economic indicators revealed a few days back which show that exports to the Asia-Pacific region by the United States were larger than that to Western Europe for the same period, another historic first.
Media analysts Informa have said that total net TV advertising for Asia Pacific, minus factors including agency commission and client discounts, was $27.9bn. This compares to the value of the western European TV ad market which was placed at $26.7bn.
North America retained its place as the biggest TV ad market globally at $38.9bn.
The data indicates the rapid pace of the economic transformation taking place around the world as Western Europe had been expected to stay ahead of the Asia Pacific region in terms of total ad revenue for a number of years. The data is all the more startling as major sports events, such as the London Olympics in 2012 and football World Cups in South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014 –countries that are compatible with European time zones, and therefore attractive to TV advertisers – are looming on the horizon.
However, new projections indicate that the Asia Pacific region will now stay ahead, though the gap between it and Western Europe will narrow down considerably by 2012.
"There are very large markets such as India and there was no recession like we saw in Western Europe," said Simon Murray, principal media analyst at Informa. "We did not expect Asia Pacific to pass Western Europe until after 2012, and possibly even 2015, although if I had to say when it might have happened with no recession I'd say probably in 2013."
