That online media is gaining media share from more traditional platforms isn’t a new change, but a recent white paper from the Association for Canadian Advertisers (ACA) and Nielsen charts a direct relationship between gains in digital video and drops in television for 2016.

According to the study, the majority (45%) of media budgets are expected to stay flat in 2016, with 24% saying media budgets will go up more than 10% and 22% noting they will go up less than 10%. Only 9% of respondents noted that budgets would go down in 2016.

The ACA and Nielsen gathered numbers for the white paper by surveying 100 leading Canadian marketers in November and December of 2015, 66 of whom responded.

The white paper was presented by Imran Hirani, VP, media and advertiser analytics, Nielsen as part of an event in partnership with the ACA in Toronto on Tuesday morning.

Though it still held the lion’s share of media investment in 2015, TV is facing the greatest demand pressures in 2016, with marketers saying they will drop average budget share points to the platform by an average of 3.5 this year. That’s contrasted with digital video, which is expected to see average budgets share points grow by 2.1 in 2016.

Marketers who stated they would be growing their digital display and video share points were the most likely to state they were also dropping their investment in TV for 2016. That group said they would be growing their investment in digital video by 3.9, digital display by 2 and dropping average budget share points to TV by 7.3.

Those with small budgets overall reported that they would be dropping their investment in TV the most in 2016, with an expected 5.7 dip in average TV budget point share to the platform. Marketers with medium and large budgets reported a smaller drop in TV investment, with a 2.3 drop.

Higher drops on TV were also reported for marketers that are facing flat or declining media budgets in 2016. That group reported that average TV budget share points would be dropping 4.2 versus a 2.5 drop for marketers that said their teams would be growing overall media budgets in 2016.

The expected shifts away from TV in 2016 are despite consumer numbers that say ads on the platform are the most likely to drive action. According to numbers compiled by Nielsen at the start of 2015, 57% of Canadian respondents said that they took action based on TV ads. That’s compared with 30% of respondents who said they take action after seeing an online video ad.

ACA president Ron Lund closed the morning with comments on how TV could help position itself best for the future. Key to the changes he says the Canadian industry needs is the introduction of addressable TV, which would put the TV on a more level playing field with data-heavy digital players.

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