Borrell report projects dramatic growth of pureplay mobile and advertising

borrell chart 01Tom Taylor’s NOW newsletter pointed us to the just-released Borrell Associates study, The Future of Legacy Media. The 40-page report analyzes migration from analog to digital, and the projected impact of that shift for print, broadcast, and Internet media platforms. Borrell frames the transition in two five-year periods: 2008 to 2013, and forward to 2018. In Borrell’s framework, 2008 was the year of initial disruption to legacy media, although that differs among the mediums within “media.”

One of the most distinct and rapid changes is projected within the shift to Internet. The report defines “Pure-play Internet” as computer desktop use, and also breaks out Pure-play Mobile. Use of desktop media has grown by four minutes per day (average) between 2008 and 2013. On the mobile side, that growth  is 18 minutes, a 545% change. During the next five years, Borrell projects mobile use to gain another 93%.

A glance at the executive summary might seem to portend outstanding growth projection for radio (82% to 2018), but in this study, “Radio” includes Pandora, Apple, and “other competitors.”

Tom Taylor dives into a more specific broadcast-radio forecast with report author Kip Cassino, and reports that the bottom-line forecast for radio is “treading water.” Tom also teases out this startling quote regarding Pandora’s pureplay market dominance: “Pandora singlehandedly controls more than four-fifths of online radio listenership … It is now half the size of radio giant Cumulus, roughly the same size as Cox Radio and Radio One, and twice the size of Beasley, Emmis and Salem Communications.”

How does the transition from analog to digital consumption affect advertising revenue? Gordon Borrell notes that legacy media currently controls half of advertising dollars; in five years it will be one-fourth. The rest? “Gobbled up like Pac-Man by pureplay.”

Brad Hill