The turnover with audio-visual media content will increase by 6.2% to €12.44 billion in Germany this year.
In 2017, growth amounted to 6.7%, reports German industry association VAUNET (formerly VPRT) in its Market Forecast 2018.
In the radio advertising sector, VAUNET is anticipating net revenue growth of 2.0% to €800 million euros in 2018 (2017: + 2.1%). At a much lower level, growth of 50% is expected in the in-stream audio advertising segment up to around €44 million (2017: + 38%), while a rise of 3.7% is envisaged for radio and audio advertising revenue (linear and non-linear), reaching a new high of €843 million.
In the television advertising sector, VAUNET is forecasting net growth of around 0.5% to €4.61 billion for 2018 (2017: + 0.7%) and for the in-stream video advertising sector an increase of 15% to €552 million (2017: + 21%). According to the forecast, total revenues from video advertising (linear and non-linear) will grow by 1.9% to €5.17 billion.
As a result, audio and audio-visual advertising revenue in Germany will reach a record figure of €6 billion for the first time in 2018.
Paid audio-visual content revenues in the audio-visual media sector are expected to increase by 13.0% to around €4.34 billion by the end of 2018, exceeding the 4-billion-euro revenue mark for the first time. In this segment, pay-TV will be the area generating the highest revenue, recording growth of around 4.0% to reach €2.39 billion (2017: + 6.0%).
Paid video-on-demand revenues, including subscription and transactional video-on-demand as well as electronic sell through is estimated to grow by 30% to €1.04 billion (2017: + 45%), also a new record figure. On-demand income from audio offerings is expected to rise by 22.7% to around €909 million (2017: + 28%). The teleshopping segment also continues to grow, with VAUNET anticipating a 5.0% increase in revenues to reach €2.09 billion (2017: + 3.0%).
For the period 2019 to 2023, VAUNET is expecting a continuing rise in demand for audio-visual media content and audio-visual advertising platforms. In the view of the experts consulted in this context, the most important trend in coming years will include many technology-driven and platform-driven features, such as smart TV and smart radio, digital content discovery solutions, for example voice control and intelligent recommendation systems, addressable advertising and other data-based business models.
Coupled with this, experts see, on the one hand, great opportunities to develop their offers, but on the other hand, also a danger that some dominant platforms may restrict the development potential of media companies. Despite this, media companies are investing more than ever in both content and the expansion of their non-linear and interactive offers.
