In 48 data graphs across 67 pages, local business analyst Borrell Associates tracks how the advertising industry in its many segments has transitioned to a digital medium.
“Local digital advertising cleared a historic threshold in 2024,” Borrell states, noting that it topped $100 billion at that point, and accounted for about 70% of all local ad spending. Borrell calls that trend “an inversion of the 1990s-era hierarchy that once favored print:
Old-school media categories benefit from the digital shift. “Digital now supplies a meaningful lift to legacy outlets: for many newspapers it is more than half of ad revenue, while even broadcast TV stations derive a growing—if smaller—portion,” Borrell’s report affirms.
Perhaps inevitably, there is a competitive imbalance of scale:
“The competitive gap remains wide. Google, Meta, and other pure-plays not only dwarf local players in revenue and double digit growth rates, but they also reinvest aggressively—up to 40% of revenue—into R&D, an expense line essentially absent from traditional media balance sheets.”
Nothing clarifies a trend like a graph (below), and Borrell has crafted one whose timeline ranges from the bursting of the dot-com bubble (year 2000) to the present. It shows a dramatic reversal of fortunes, with legacy media and digital media switching places as the overall market value rockets upward.
A dramatic reversal of fortunes, with legacy media and digital media switching places as the overall market value escalates dramatically.
The report, which is attached to an upcoming webinar, is HERE. Webinar registration starts HERE.