BIA Advisory Services’ latest U.S. Local Advertising Forecast delivers initial expectations for 2025 and updates spending estimates for 2024. The projected revenues across all local media in the U.S. will reach $171 billion in 2025. This represents an increase of 5.5 percent in non-political spending over our revised 2024 estimate. When including political advertising, the 2025 estimate represents a 1.3% decline from the revised estimate of $173.7 billion for 2024. In this forecast, BIA raised its 2024 local advertising estimate primarily due to an expectation of increased political advertising of $560 million.
“With macroeconomic conditions impacting 2024 local advertising spending, it has been slower than anticipated, and we’ve adjusted this year’s forecast,” said Nicole Ovadia, VP of Forecasting & Analysis, BIA Advisory Services. “We’ve refined our projections for local advertising, both with and without political advertising, to better reflect anticipated overall media spend and to offer a view in the advertising marketplace from different perspectives.”
The recent forecast update shows a small increase in expectations for local political advertising in 2024. BIA now projects $11.7 billion in spending this year, up $560 million from its previous estimate in March. This political spending estimate represents a significant increase of 21.3 percent over the last general election that took place in 2020. Local television continues to get the largest share of the spending. At the same time, the firm projects that Connected TV/Over-the-Top (OTT) will receive much of the additional political ad dollars added to the mix.
For 2025, Ovadia offered a measured perspective: “We’re taking a nuanced view to shape our expectations. If the Fed adjusts interest rates as indicated, post-Q1 2025 or early Q2, and inflation cools and the labor market settles out, we anticipate some economic relief by mid-year. This will boost consumer confidence and, subsequently, increase media ad spend. While we’re optimistic, we’re also being cautious with our projections at this early stage.”
In 2025, BIA’s forecast shows that digital’s share of total local advertising is greater than traditional media’s share for the first time. Digital ad revenue will get 52 percent of the overall advertising spend at $89 billion compared to traditional advertising revenue that is slated at 48 percent of the ad spend at $82 billion.
Growing media in the forecast without political for 2025 include PC/Laptop (+13%), CTV/OTT (+9.1%), Out-of-Home (+5.9%), and TV Digital (+5.4%).
BIA’s Managing Director Rick Ducey said, “In previous forecast rounds, we reported robust growth in CTV/OTT, but different factors have led us to moderate expectations around the speed of that growth. One factor is that while streaming viewing is growing, there’s less available ad minutes in streaming versus linear TV. However, this channel continues to present valuable opportunities for advertisers due to how it combines the power of premium TV with the precision of digital audience targeting. Political and issue campaigns are tapping into this capability, and it will be interesting to unpack the use cases and outcomes.”
BIA’s local advertising forecast covers 12 vertical categories and 96 local verticals. Key vertical categories for 2025 include:
- Restaurants (+9.5 percent)
- Real Estate (+6.7 percent)
- Retail (+5.5 percent)
“Restaurants, Real Estate, and Retail – we’re referring to them as the Three Rs of 2025 – are ripe for expansion, and they all tie back to local advertising and media in meaningful ways. We’ll be keeping a close eye on opportunities in both traditional and digital ad spend across these verticals,” Ovadia noted.
Media Type 2024 Forecast 2023 Forecast 24/23 Change from March Forecast CTV/OTT $3,630,386,642 $2,358,960,783 53.90% 0.0% Radio Digital $2,884,281,350 $2,830,316,183 1.90% -3.0% Radio OTA $10,707,169,417 $10,521,479,293 1.80% -0.7% TV Digital $2,229,600,000 $1,777,800,000 25.40% 0.4% TV OTA $20,752,000,000 $16,203,500,000 28.10% -0.2% Source: BIA's 2025 U.S. Local Advertising Forecast
