Enders Analysis Explores Brexit’s Effect on TV Ad Revenues

Enders Analysis has revised its U.K. TV advertising forecast downward for 2019, to a decline of 5 percent for the year, due to the prospect of the Brexit deadline looming.

The figures for the first half of the year, with TV advertising down 3.3 percent, are in line with the forecast of TV ad revenue being down 3 percent in 2019, on the assumption of an orderly exit from the EU. The downward revision concerns the second half of 2019, and mainly Q4. Enders Analysis forecasts TV advertising to be down 6.7 percent in H2 2019.

TV advertising is being impacted by the economic downturn, according to the analysis. Companies’ traditional budgets for communication, composed of advertising and marketing, appear to be in decline in the U.K. Nominally, advertising has risen as a share of consumption, driven largely by the rise of online advertising expenditure.

In mature economies, such as the U.K., TV advertising expenditure tends to track consumer expenditure. Since the vote for Brexit in June 2016, the association between growth of TV advertising spend and retail sales has broken down. In the first half of 2019, retail sales rose 3.8 percent, but TV ad expenditure was down 3.3 percent year-on-year.

Enders Analysis notes that there is no reliable official forecast that envisions the economic outcome in 2020 as a result of a no-deal Brexit, preventing any forecast for TV advertising revenues in 2020.