GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, has released the findings of This Year Next Year, its end-of-year global advertising report for 2024.

The report analyses ad investments over the past 12 months and makes projections for 2025 and beyond. The report states that strong performance of the largest sellers of advertising and increased digital expansion propelled growth in global advertising investment to 9.5% this year. The industry will surpass $1 trillion USD in total revenue for the first time by the end of 2024 (excluding U.S. political advertising) and is projected to grow another 7.7% in 2025 to reach $1.1 trillion USD.

All top ten advertising markets are expected to track some level of growth in 2024. The U.S. and China remain the two largest markets, with total ad revenue expected to grow 9.0% to $379.0 billion and 13.5% to $204.5 billion, respectively, by the end of the year. The U.K. remains in third place, just ahead of Japan. Germany and France maintain their rankings, followed by Canada, Brazil, India and Australia.

The GroupM report says that in Canada, TV (which includes streaming) will grow 3% in 2024 to $2.8 billion USD, followed by a projected 6.0% growth in 2025, 2026, and 2027. Streaming is expected to grow to a point that it will offset steady declines in linear TV. Despite the strength of live sports in linear, the migration of dollars to streaming TV and premium video has slowed linear spend. Linear will have fallen 6.1% by the end of 2024. It is projected to fall another 6.6% in 2025, with double-digit declines yearly from 2026 through 2029.

The cost of programming for 2025 for linear and streaming is forecast to be higher than ever as broadcasters and streamers are bidding against each other to acquire fresh content. Streaming TV will grow 32.3% this year to $851.2 million USD. It is projected to grow another 34.8% in 2025 to $1.1 billion USD in ad revenue.

Pure-play digital will have grown 12.5% in 2024, hitting $15.8 billion and accounting for 74.7% of all ad revenue in Canada. It is expected to hit $24.7 billion in 2029, when it will account for 79.8% of the market. Search, meanwhile, will have jumped 11.4% this year to $8.1 billion.

Other digital, primarily social media, accounts for 50.5% of digital media revenue in 2024. It is projected to fall just below 50% in 2025 as retail media inches upward over the next five years.

Retail media will have seen 13.6% growth in 2024, followed by two more years of projected double-digit growth, before settling into high single-digit growth through 2029 when it will hit $4.3 billion USD in revenue. Amazon remains the dominant player with expanded opportunities connected to ad-supported Prime Video, as well as Monday night NHL games for the next two seasons through a deal with Rogers Sports & Media.

Other bricks and mortar retailers in Canada, such as Advance powered by Loblaw and Triangle Media, are growing their capabilities, while global and multi-market players such as Walmart and Best Buy continue to expand as well.

In Canada, total OOH will grow 8.0% this year to $635.3 million USD. Traditional OOH will see an 6.8% increase this year but growth will slow down over the next five years with annual growth hovering around 2.0% between 2027 and 2029. Digital OOH will see 10.0% growth in 2024 with another 6.1% increase expected in 2025.

While audio will grow by 2.0% this year, it won’t see growth above 1.5% over the next five years. Audio is projected to surpass $1.0 billion USD in 2027, which is still below pre-pandemic revenue.

Newspaper ad revenue, including digital extensions, will see a 5.2% decline in 2024 and continue to decline over the next five years. While magazines, including their digital extensions, are projected to decline 1.4% in 2024 and another 1.9% in 2025, with modest growth expected after that.