In the advertising market, while television is doing rather well, this is unfortunately not the case for all media. The print media are facing a headwind and seeing their advertising revenues plummet. It fell by 7.4% in 2017 in France. This follows a 6.7% fall the year before.
At the same time, the internet has come out on top as the big winner in this economy. In 2017, advertising revenues generated by the web in France amounted to no less than €4.09 billion.

Collapsing advertising revenues for the press

While an advertising insert sold in a print magazine is more expensive than on the web, as we pointed out in this article, the fact is that it attracts only a limited number of advertisers. The figures speak for themselves. The regional daily press alone has seen its advertising revenues plummet by 4.6%. This steady decline in advertising revenues has hit the magazine press particularly hard. However, it alone generated nearly €730 million. Despite its status as the locomotive of the paper publishing advertising economy, the sector recorded a fall of 11.4% over one year.

Only the specialist magazines are still recording rising figures. This is the case, for example, of the gardening magazine sector, which saw its volume of advertising insertions increase by 51% in one year. While the number of advertisers in Family – Health magazines increased by 4% over the same period. The regional weekly press had to make do with estimated advertising revenues of 108 million euros, with an overall drop of 2.9%.

Internet takes the cake

The big winner in the advertising market is the Internet. Over the year, this is the sector that has seen the biggest increase in advertising revenues. The increase is 12% compared with 2016.

In the digital and internet sector, advertising revenue can be divided into two main types. Display (display banners) and Search (search engines). Display saw a 20% increase in advertising revenues, reaching €1.450 billion in 2017. In 2016, the sector had already recorded an increase of 14.5%. Search advertising saw its revenues rise to €2.050 billion. This represents an increase of 8% in one year.

As you can see, the online advertising sector is doing rather well. Alongside sectors such as print (flyers), TV and cinema, it has succeeded in boosting revenues from advertisers. Quite simply, its sustained growth means that it now generates more advertising revenue than television. With a gloomy climate for the print media, it’s clear that publishers need to reinvent themselves, or bet on digital from now on.

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