The pandemic is clearly taking its toll on the advertising industry, as sectors such as automotive, retail and travel continue to sharply curtail their advertising spending. Indeed, without the $4.9 billion spent on advertising during the U.S. elections, the global ad market would have been projected to contract by about 11% ($68 billion).
Most of the year’s decline can be attributed to cuts in traditional media spending. Global spending drops on linear TV (down $29.9 billion), cinema (down $1.5 billion), out of home (down $11.3 billion), newspapers (down $9.8 billion), magazines (down $4 billion) and radio (down $5.9 billion) accounted for 98% of the overall drop.
