The audiovisual German media market will increase its revenues across all segments – TV, video, radio, audio – by 5.8% to a total of €11.6 billion this year.
The largest growth areas are in-stream audio and video advertising and paid video-on-demand revenues, according to the autumn 2017 market forecast by VPRT, the German industry association of commercial broadcasters.
In 2016, the revenues generated by the industry rose by 5.9% to just under €11 billion. “For 2017, we are forecasting an increase in revenue of half a billion euros for the German market, with growth in every individual segment of the audiovisual media industry. Additional market growth is expected over the next few years,” said Frank Giersberg, Member of the Management Board responsible for Market and Business Development at VPRT.
In the case of radio advertising, the association anticipates net revenue growth of 2.2% to around €0.79 billion in 2017 (previous year: +3.3%). In the in-stream audio advertising segment, growth of 38% to around €29 million is expected (2016: +40%). A rise of 3.1% is envisaged for radio and audio advertising revenues (linear and non-linear) to reach a new high of €0.81 billion.
In the case of television advertising, VPRT is forecasting net growth of around 1.1% to €4.6 billion for 2017 (2016: +3.1%), for the sector of online video advertising integrated into streaming facilities (in-stream video advertising), an increase of 23% to €0.49 billion (2016: +24%). According to the forecast, total revenues from video advertising (linear and non-linear) will climb by 2.8% to €5.1 billion, topping the €5-billion mark for the first time.
Paid content revenue in the audiovisual media sector is expected to increase by 12.5% to around €3.7 billion by the end of 2017, also a new record figure. In this area, pay-TV will be the segment generating the highest revenue, realising growth of around 7% to reach €2.3 billion. Paid video-on-demand revenue is estimated to grow by 26% to €0.69 billion and on-demand income from audio offerings by 20% to €0.7 billion. The teleshopping sector also continues to grow, with VPRT expecting a 3% increase in revenue to just under €2 billion.
Experts consulted for the forecast anticipate continuing growth in competition, increasingly created by international players, along with fast advances in media convergence over the period from 2018 to 2022. Ongoing development of the audiovisual market will be shaped by the expansion of non-linear offerings, increasing investment in various types of interactive offerings such as Smart TV and Smart Radio, the introduction of new types of offerings like virtual reality and 360-degree videos as well as further advances in digitisation and automation on an increasing number of levels such as addressable TV, intelligent user interfaces, voice-controlled platforms, recommendation engines, metadata, automated booking systems and programmatic advertising.
