UK TV advertising budget in 2016

The UK ranks 4th among the world’s largest advertising market, with 21.19 £billion invested in 2016. What about TV? How much was invested in TV? Who were the heaviest investors? Realytics gives you some answers.

£5.28 billion were invested in TV in the UK in 2016, up 0.2% in 2015, representing the 7^th consecutive year that TV advertising revenue has grown in the UK; TV is doing really fine! They were 837 new or returning TV advertisers – meaning they at least took a 5-year break – accounting for 1,6% of total TV ad revenue.

Who were the heaviest investors in TV? Online businesses! With a total of £639 million invested in TV, an increase of 8% on 2015, when they invested over £500 million. TV advertisers were brands like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, or JustEat.

The Top 5 most viewed TV advertisers were Procter & Gamble, with 34.8 billion, 14% up year on year, followed by Sky, with 24.6 billion views (17% up), Reckitt Benckiser, with 21.2 billion views (4% up), BT, with 15.7 billion views (15% up) and Unilever, with 14.6 billion views (28% down). In 2015, number 5 was Mars, with 16.4 billion views.

Important information to keep when we know that an average broadcast TV campaign gets 237 million views, and that an average UK TV viewer watches 45 TV ads a day. Finally, TV is mostly watched live (86%).

Source : BARB 2016