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More money is now spent in this nation on digital advertising than on television and print advertising and the audience for online podcasts is growing, while the radio audience is beginning to decline. As news, information and entertainment continues to expand online and decline in more traditional formats, these are among the most telling trends outlined in Pew Research Center’s recently released top takeaways about the state of the news media in 2020.
Nearly 2-out-of-3( 63%) advertising dollars were spent digitally in 2020, according to eMarketer estimates. That added up to more than $150 billion devoted to digital advertising in 2020 alone—a $20 billion increase from the year before. For each of the past 3 years, digital has taken an increasing and now dominant slice of the advertising pie, jumping from 49% in 2018 to 55% in 2019 to 63% in 2020. All indications are that this growth will continue both as a share of the advertising market and in absolute dollars.