Newspaper woes to dent UK adspend, predicts GroupM

By Daniel Farey-Jones, mediaweek.co.uk, Tuesday, 06 December 2011 09:28AM

WPP media buying operation GroupM has reduced its forecast for growth in UK adspend for this year from 1.5% to 0.7%, after projecting larger declines for newspapers.

At the time of its previous forecast in June GroupM was already predicting a tough year for print media, tipping national and regional newspapers for an 8.3% fall in adspend.

At the end of the year it has now revised that to an 11% drop, with nationals down from -4.1% to -6% and regionals down from -12.6% to -16%.

Other media are also suffering. Consumer magazines are now predicted to be down 6% instead of down 5% and cinema down by 5% instead of flat.

Outdoor's 2% rise has been crossed out and replaced by no growth.

On the positive side, GroupM now believes radio will be up 5% having previously predicted it would not experience growth.

TV is unchanged at 1.1% growth, while "interaction" (comprising online spend such as paid search, display and classified) has been bumped up from 10.3% to 10.5%.

For next year, GroupM believes the pace of online's growth will relent to 9.1%, while all other media will enjoy better prospects than this year.

Radio is forecast for another 5% up year, TV and cinema each for 3% growth, but outdoor will be out in front with 6%.

Newspaper and magazines' rate of decline will only slow however. The former will be down 5.3%, with nationals down 3.1% and regionals down 7.8%, while consumer magazines will be down 3%.

Overall growth in 2012 will come in at 3.2%.

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This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk