BIA/Kelsey Local Media Forecast: Change Accelerates, Revenues Decelerate in the Near Term

Today, BIA/Kelsey released its 2009-2014 U.S. local advertising forecast. Over the past two months, lead analysts Charles Laughlin, Matt Booth, Mike Boland, Peter Krasilovsky, Rick Ducey and Mark Fratrik have grinded through the process of forecasting local ad revenues.

This applies across 12 local media sectors and includes multiple layers of traditional and interactive revenues. The process engages the analyst team in a comprehensive look at U.S. local media both near term and long term.

We expect a further decline in total local advertising this year to about $130 billion. We believe the revenue floor will be reached by the end of 2010, triggered by both cyclical (recession) and structural (the accelerated shift to online media) factors.

Top-line revenues will finally begin increasing again in 2011. And in two years, we expect a bit of an acceleration in the rate of growth, and total local media revenues will reach about $144 billion by the end of 2014.

Though not part of the five-year forecast, our analysts expect revenues to reach the previous high water mark of $155 billion by mid-to late 2015. By then, digital or interactive revenues should account for nearly 30 percent of the overall pie.

BIA/Kelsey clients can log in to the home page to access the full report, and today’s press release is available here.