Australia’s media agency market ended 2025 softer, with December ad spend back 9.2 per cent YOY as advertisers trimmed fourth-quarter budgets amid ongoing economic caution, the latest Guideline SMI data shows.
Over the full year ad spend held steady, back just two per cent overall, with the 1.6 per cent market growth seen in the first six months of the year—which only held up steadily due to the federal election. Following the conclusion of the election, spend was wiped out in the second six months of the year—so much so ad spend fell 5.2 per cent over that period.
It’s not all doom and gloom for the back end of 2025. For the December month, the highlight was the growth in Linear TV, with its total up 0. 4 per cent YOY with Metropolitan TV ad spend up 4.6 per cent (mostly due to Seven’s Cricket broadcast and growth at SBS) and Direct Pay TV bookings lifting by 22.4 per cent. Cinema also impressed with the value of bookings growing by 3.6 per cent YOY.
But Guideline SMI APAC managing director Jane Ractliffe said that given the time of year Digital bookings are still being finalised and Digital’s total will improve from the current 9.3 per cent overall decline which is mostly due to the slowness of finalising the cost of Programmatic campaigns, with that sector’s ad spend so far back 18.4 per cent.
The lower December numbers contributed to a much softer Q4 with bookings back 6.6 per cent to a level not seen since 2019, driven by a 30 per cent decline in Government category ad spend in the quarter plus lower double -digit declines from the Retail and Food/Produce/Dairy product
categories.
Ractliffe also explained that Outdoor remained the top performing media for the year, with first half growth of 11.6 per cent and delivering the largest revenue uplift of major any media over the calendar year of 5.3 per cent. Digital was the next best performer for the year with total bookings up 1.2 per cent.
“But caution has certainly returned to the market in December and this time even Outdoor is affected. Indeed , in the second half of the year the only media growing bookings was online streaming services where ad revenues lifted 9.2 per cent,’’ she said.
“It’s a very similar story in New Zealand with December ad spend back 8.7 per cent to deliver a 1.6 per cent decline in calendar year ad spend. The biggest difference between the two markets is the sustained growth of Outdoor (up 3.7 per cent in December) and the ongoing growth of NZ Radio
bookings (up 3 per cent in December and 9.4 per cent over the year).”
But the first half of the financial year was less dire, with total ad spend back 5.2 per cent and within that Digital held up relatively well (only dropping 1.3 per cent) and Outdoor was flat.
The key product categories influencing this trend included Government ad spend (decreasing 31.7 per cent in the half to remove $68 million from the market) and Food/Produce/Dairy advertising (back 19 per cent).
On a more positive note, Insurance brands grew the value of media bookings by 20.3 per cent in the half and ad spend from Banks lifted by 8.8 per cent.
