Advertising income should stabilize for media companies in 2025

The advertising market has a positive impulse in 2025 – in particular for media companies with sports rights and live programming.

Sports and live events such as reward shows have reigned supreme in conversations with media leaders who weighed on their expectations for the advertising market in the coming year. The end of uncertainty surrounding the elections also helped the prospects to improve.

And despite consumers fleeing traditional television beams, with more advertising dollars to streaming, managers have stressed that traditional television is still important in discussions with advertisers, especially with regard to sport.

Overall, the leaders said they expect stability on the market and hoped to exceed the slowdown in advertising spending in recent years.

“Standardization is the right way to say it with the advertising market,” said Mark Marshall, president of advertising and worldwide partnerships. “The elections have settled, many companies feel the uncertainty about which has disappeared.”

He added that the company saw more so-called budgets of the dispersion market occurred during the fourth quarter, which the industry calls for the purchase and sale of announcements closer to their aerial ads compared to the announcements which are bought further.

“Our first quarter seems really strong. I think that any electoral year is difficult for anyone in the fourth quarter, because many marketing specialists have ended up their hands since the waves and digital are crowded,” said Dan Porter, CEO of the Sports Media Society being prolonged. “I think it's true for us and it's true for everyone.”

However, despite the increase in advertising revenue following elections and the stability of forecasts, Natalie Bastian, director of world marketing of teads, said that she expected many of the same trends.

Bastian noted that 2024 included major moments such as the summer Olympic Games and the presidential election, which strengthened television advertising. However, it expects the same budgets to continue in the new year.

“What we have generally heard of some of our closest partners … Media budgets do not develop, and there is therefore more selection in the place where (advertisers are) spend their money,” said Bastian. This makes sports and programs even more important for media companies.

Overall, the world advertising industry should exceed $ 1 billion in total income for the first time this year, excluding American political advertisingand increased by 7.7% in 2025 to 1.1 billion of dollars, according to a recent report From Groupm, the WPP multimedia investment group. Advertising on digital platforms – which includes retail media As a segment – this is what stimulates this increase.

Television, considered to be “the most effective form of advertising”, is expected to increase by almost 2% in 2025 to 169.1 billion dollars in global advertising revenues. In comparison, advertising revenues for “Pure-Play Digital”, which excludes “digital extensions from traditional media” such as streaming but includes platforms like YouTube and Tiktok, should grow from 10% to 813.3 billion dollars worldwide in 2025, according to GroupM.

Sports continue to attract large audiences and advertisers, leading media companies to pay heavy sums For the rights of the games.

Advertising during live sports have generated 24% more commitment than other programs, according to Edo, an advertising data company.

“Covering live events will continue to be a cornerstone of media engagement, and streaming services must intensify their game,” said Tim Hurd, Vice-President of the Media of Goodway Group. “Like more streaming platforms dive into sportThe challenge will be to keep the viewers committed, not only by offering content, but by improving the overall experience of personalized and non -disruptive advertising units. “”

Comcast's nbcuniversal said that the Summer Olympic Games In Paris generated a record of $ 1.2 billion in advertising revenue. He seemed to have refundedThe company reporting total audience delivery of more than 30 million people on NBC television and streaming platforms.

Fox Corp. The leaders said that the company had already sold Super Bowl advertisements for next February, which would have costs about $ 7 million each. The Super Bowl 2024 had a estimated 123.7 million viewers.

And Disney said he had sold advertisements for his Christmas day NBA matches two weeks before their broadcasting. The company added that it “referred considerably” for the whole season of the NBA with regard to advertising revenues from last year, and that it is already seen in the first movement “for the playoffs on the dispersion market.

The public of female sports, motivated by the WNBA in particular, also increased last year, which means more opportunities for advertisers.

“It is beyond Caitlin Clark, even if it is a massive catalyst,” said Josh Mattison, Disney Advertising Executive Vice-President of Price, Planning and Digital Digital Operations. “It was a year of transformation in terms of public.”

The WNBA public struck a save In 2024, and consumers were 16% more likely to engage with advertisements during these games compared to last year, according to Edo. But while advertisers spent $ 8.5 billion for sports television advertisements in 2024, female sports only represented 3% of this number, according to EDO, leaving a lot of room for growth next year.

The growing popularity of women's sports and its importance for media companies were obvious this month Netflix obtained American rights on the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2027 and 2031. The streaming giant increased its sports portfolio, as is its peers through the heritage and the digital media space.

While consumers are cut the cord And streaming services now accumulate sports rights, the Linear TV public is still considerably exceeding streaming.

“There is still a drop in linear television on many markets, but not on all markets,” said Kate Scot-Dawkins, World Intelligence of Groupm, noting that there are growth markets that see growth. “When we talk about Total TV, there are still a lot of opportunities and, hopefully, a renewed appreciation for the efficiency of this as a medium (for advertisers).”

Amy Leifer, Director of Advertising Advertising Advertising Advertising, said that the company predicts continuous growth in programmatic advertising expenditure or purchasing automated digital ads in streaming.

“Despite the change towards streaming, linear television still has a significant advantage in terms of advertising printing, generating six times more than streaming,” said Leifer.

Managers said they had spoken with advertisers how to watch linear and streaming together when advertising dollars disburse.

Leifer said that the Mantra of Directv Advertising is that “television is television”, whatever the distribution method. “Our objective for 2025 is to unify digital and linear television advertising by adopting a complete approach and developing convergent television solutions,” she added.

Marshall of Nbcuniversal and Mattison of Disney said that advertisers focused on linear “against” streaming. This is no longer the case.

“The field (we did advertisers) last year is that you really can't look at each other. When it is deployed in a single platform, it's how you look at digital and linear together.

Marshall said the peacock of Nbcuniversal “did not cannibalized linear”, because there is little overlap between the content of the two distribution points. “These are in fact two distinct and different audiences,” said Marshall.

Mattison noted the vast sports portfolio of Disney and its various platforms through Linear and Streaming, with television networks like ABC and ESPN, and streaming service ESPN +, which has content added to Disney +, were an advantage.

“Convergence (streaming applications) is really good for consumers, which leads to the growth of advertisers,” he said. “We are lucky that we spent years building our advertising streaming technology, and we are able to maximize the scope of the audience as well as targeting and performance.”

“Perhaps a few years ago, it was linear versus streaming. I think now it's linear and streaming,” Mattison continued. “They are sort of planned together. It is true both on the side of the media and on the side of advertisers.”

Disclosure: Comcast has CNBC Parent Nbcuniversal. NBCUniversal has NBC SPORTS AND NBC Olympics. The NBC Olympic Games are the holder of the US broadcasting rights in all summer and winter matches until 2032.