Digital remains a crucial driver for entertainment and media growth. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) believes digital services will drive more than two-thirds of entertainment and media services growth in the next five years, with global spend topping USD2.1 trillion by 2016. There is a caveat to this, however, with PwC predicting the rate of growth will be slower in the current climate compared to previous years as businesses and whole industries reposition themselves. PWC's most interesting predictions concern digital music and magazines, forecasting that both will return to growth, with digital music spend surpassing physical spend in 2015.

The report also suggests global mobile ad spend will increase nearly five times over to USD24.5bn in 2016 up from USd5.2bn last year. PwC's estimate is similar to that in recent research from IAB Europe and IHS Screen Digest, which pegged global mobile ad spend at USD5.3bn in 2011. Asia represented more than a third of this spend with USD2bn. North America was next with 31.4% or USD1.7bn, while Europe accounted for just over a quarter with USD1.38bn. Paid search is currently the most popular format accounting for 62% of mobile ad spend last year. Mobile search only looks set to grow in the coming years, with Google presumably rubbing its hands with glee at the prospect as it remains positioned to be the biggest beneficiary.

Along with mobile search, online video looks to be a growth area for digital ad spend this year. A survey by ad network Brightroll (which clearly has something of a vested interest) say that 64% of the ad agency execs it polled saying they now believe that video is as effective, if not more so, than traditional TV advertising. This is a bold claim, but the figures don't currently back that up. eMarketer forecasts US online video spend to hit USD3.1bn this year, compared to the USD64.5bn the IAB predicts marketers will spend on TV. If the execs polled by Brightroll are right, then savvy advertisers may well put shift some of their budget from TV to online video.

Backing up Brightroll's research is a finding in Edelman's annual entertainment survey. It suggests that the web is fast closing the gap on TV as the primary source of entertainment in the US. Some 345 of this year's respondees say they run to the web first in their spare time compared to 45% for TV. Two years ago the TV figure was 58%. While this is about the internet as a whole as a source of entertainment and social media is the chief driver of this increase, online video is still part of the trend and stands to benefit further from this.

One of the social media sites driving the US consumers to turn to the internet first for their entertainment is Pinterest. Its visitors grew by more than 4,000% in a year, according to comScore. As a relative upstart it is growing considerably faster than its peers, with Tumblr its closest rival at 168% growth. Older networks are seeing considerably slower growth, with visits to LinkedIn up 67%, Twitter up 58% and Facebook just 4%. While its growth is eye-catching, in terms of monthly visitors Pinterest's performance is not as impressive. While Facebook has some 155m monthly visitors, Pinterest has around 20m, behind the likes of LinkedIn and Tumblr, though some predict it to overtake these this year.

DIGITAL DRIVES ENTERTAINMENT MARKET
Digital remains a crucial driver for entertainment and media growth. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) believes digital services will drive more than two-thirds of entertainment... [Read More]

MOBILE AD GROWTH
The report also suggests global mobile ad spend will increase nearly five times over to USD24.5bn in 2016 up from USd5.2bn last year. PwC's estimate is similar to... [Read More]

ONLINE VIDEO AS EFFECTIVE AS TV
Along with mobile search, online video looks to be a growth area for digital ad spend this year. A survey by ad network Brightroll (which clearly has something of a vested... [Read More]

WEB CLOSING IN ON TV
Backing up Brightroll's research is a finding in Edelman's annual entertainment survey. It suggests that the web is fast closing the gap on TV as the primary source of... [Read More]

PINTEREST GROWTH
One of the social media sites driving the US consumers to turn to the internet first for their entertainment is Pinterest. Its visitors grew by more than 4,000% in a... [Read more]