TV ad spend rose 3.8% in 2024

TV advertising investment in the UK grew 3.8% to reach £5.27 billion in 2024, according to Thinkbox.

The latest findings from the marketing body for the commercial TV industry show that broadcaster TV (ie, linear and on-demand services across Channel 4, ITV, Sky, and UKTV) rose by £51.8 million, bringing total investment to £5.04 billion in 2024.

According to ThinkBox, broadcaster TV accounts for 95.5% of total TV ad spend. Ad-supported SVOD, AVOD, and FAST services — including Discovery+, Disney+, Netflix, Prime Video, and Vevo — made up the remaining £236 million. This figure was up from £96 million in 2023.

Despite the growth, TV is still dwarfed by online advertising. In February, We Are Social reported that digital ad spend in the UK (including search and social media) rose by 9.4% to $48.1 billion (£35.9 billion*). Social media ad spend alone reportedly increased by 13.8% year-on-year to $11.4 billion (£8.5 billion).

But EssenceMediacom’s CSO Richard Kirk argued last year — as part of research conducted in conjunction with Thinkbox — that ‘brands could be spending three times too much on social’ and giving TV less credit.

FMCG driving growth

Thinkbox reported that 932 new advertisers tried TV in 2024, up from 791 in 2023, bringing in £124.9 million in additional revenue.

The largest investors in TV advertising were FMCG brands (£67 million), followed by retail (£52.4 million) and business/industrial (£21.8 million). But with the ban on advertising HFSS products coming into effect this October, investments from FMCG brands, which are still waiting for the regulator’s final guidance, could drop.

‘2024 was a tough year for businesses, and 2025 is looking even more uncertain. Brands need safe havens at a time like this, places they can rely on to deliver, defend their price premiums, and help them be as resilient as possible,’ Lindsey Clay, CEO at Thinkbox, commented in a press release.

In January, WARC and the Advertising Association estimated that the value of the UK’s total ad market in 2024 was £40.7 billion, with the strongest growth coming from online display (18.9%), search (12.7%), broadcaster video-on-demand (12.4%), and out-of-home (10.3%).