Guideline has released ad spend numbers for July 2024, showing a 22% year-over-year decline in traditional ad spend. In comparison, ad spend in July 2023 increased by 11%.

As the parent company of Standard Media Index, Lumina and SQAD, Guideline captures agency invoicing data from all major holding companies and most major independents.

While traditional ad spend dropped, digital did the opposite, increasing for the second year in a row, rising 7% in July 2024, but slower than last year’s double-digit growth. Digital ad spend also grew 7% in June, 8% in May, 10% in April and 8% in March.

Ad spend on social platforms was up 18% in July but the biggest increase actually came from a media subtype called TV network digital, the streaming channels of traditional TV networks, which is up a whopping 181%. The increase is being attributed to the Paris Olympics and Paralympics coverage on CBC Gem and CBC’s other digital channels.

“A lot of [the growth] is fueled by the shift in linear dollars going to digital video,” says Li. “What we’ve been finding in our data, and this is consistent in the U.S. as well, is that the linear dollars are being converted to digital video dollars. That doesn’t mean they’re going to CTV or long-form premium content, but you are seeing this trend of linear dollars move into social budgets, short-form video budgets like TikTok and Snap, along with CTV and long-form premium content.”

In Canada, the majority of linear TV spending comes from live sports. With new fall programming, and live sports such as NBA and NHL coming back, linear TV ad spend is expected to grow.

“When you have linear TV, one of the largest media channels, down 23%, that’s going to mean a pretty substantial impact to the overall numbers,” says Darrick Li, Guideline’s VP client partner for North America. “For context, linear TV was down 8% in June, down 20% in April, and up 4% in March. So, July is one of the biggest months of decline for linear TV. It’s actually the biggest month of decline YoY for TV in 2024.”

Looking at the year to date – January to July – total Canadian ad spend showed a 3% increase versus the same time last year.