2016.11.08 – Affinity Media: IREP & France Pub report for the first half of 2016 – A POSSIBLE RETURN OF GROWTH

In the first half 2016, the net advertising revenues of media (a) confirmed the recovery of the French advertising market, which recorded a slight increase of + 0.3% reaching € 5 606 million. In comparison, in H1 2015 the market was down – 1.6%.

Except for the first half of 2010, which showed a positive trend mainly due to an exceptional decrease in H1 2009, this positive situation in 2016 is a first since the IREP has set up a semi-annual measurement.

This improvement in the market situation can be found on:

– The total Historical Media + Internet (b) : + 0.6% in H1 2016 vs -0.7% in H1 2015.

– The total Historical Media (c): -0.4% in H1 2016 vs -2.1% in H1 2015.

i.e. an  improvement of 1.3 to 1.7 points respectively for these two areas.

Key developments:

Television confirmed its growth with + 2.0% in H1 2016, the same growth as in the 1st half of 2015.

Outdoor advertising revenues recorded an increase of + 4.2% (vs. 0.3% in H1 2015) but down by 2.5 points compared to Q1 2016 (+ 6.7% vs. Q1 2015).

Radio is up + 1.1% (vs. -3.8% in H1 2015).

The advertising revenues of the cinema increased by 11.8 %, but this evolution is mainly due to a very strong growth in the first quarter +42.8 % vs. 1st quarter 2015.

We also note the trend reversal in non-addressed advertising mail, with a growth of + 2.0% in H1 2016 (vs. -2.7% in H1 2015).

Regarding digital, the increase was + 3.1% in H1 2016 (vs. +3.6% in H1 2015).

Please note that the IREP figures do not include estimates for other large players who do not report but whose figures are likely to significantly increase this growth.

Print for its part, sees some hopes as the decrease seems to have slowed down compared to the previous years : as a whole it only fell by 7% , compared to the first half of 2015 showing a decrease of  -8.2% vs. H1 2014.

In details, the national dailies, which lost 14% over the period H1 2015 vs. H1 2014, went back by only 5%. The most important loss focusing on classified ads (-6.4%) but this figure is stabilizing compared to the previous year. Commercial advertising significantly reduced the losses with a decline limited to -4.7% against -15.4% for the period H1 2015 vs. H1 2014.

As to regional dailies the decline is stabilizing at -5.8%, yet here again classified ads lost the most with -6.7%.

Magazines also saw their results “improve”with a decrease limited to -6.3% against -8.7% over the period H1 2015 vs. H1 2014.

Free press suffered the most, it results plummeting to -15.6% against -10.4% for the period H1 2015 vs. H1 2014.

(a) Historical media + internet + mobile + advertising mail + non-addressed advertising mail

(b) Historical media + display + search

(c)TV + cinema + radio + print + outdoor advertising