Among WARC’s latest analysis of global advertising trends is the finding that ad spending in both the booming social space and on traditional linear TV may be getting a disproportionate share of budgets when considering the time the average consumer spends with these channels each day.

Looking ahead to 2022, WARC forecasts that social media will account 39.1% of 2022 ad spend, despite having a 21.4% share of daily media consumption. Linear TV is expected to get 31.5% of spending, despite having 16.1% of daily media consumption. That means social media ad spend would need to reduce by $94.3 billion USD globally to reflect global consumption levels next year, with an “investment gap” of $86.9 billion USD for linear TV.

On the flip side, WARC also says podcasts are undervalued as an ad vehicle by $40 billion USD, with online ads on news site undervalued by roughly $45.2 billion USD.

When it comes to who is spending the right amount, investment on online video is now nearly at parity after years of underinvestment.