Stats Crunch

The UK is the largest advertising market in Europe and 4th in the world. In 2006, over £19 billion was spent on advertising*.

The press secured the largest share of total advertising expenditure
(43.7%), with television the second largest medium (24.1%), followed by direct mail (12.2%), online (10.6%), outdoor (5.7%), radio (2.8%) and cinema (1.0%).

85 per cent of the £19bn was spent on display advertising of goods and services in the press, on television, radio, posters, direct mail, cinema and online.

Looking at display advertising only, television becomes the biggest medium with a 34.1% share, with the press taking second place (32.0%), followed by direct mail (17.2%), outdoor (8.0%), radio (4.0%), online (3.4%) and cinema (1.4%).

The remaining 15 per cent spent on classified advertising covers small ads, financial and legal notices, company announcements, recruitment advertising (job ads), advertising in the business and professional press and all internet search advertising (e.g. Google sponsored search).

Companies also spend substantial sums on other forms of communication such as exhibitions, sponsorship, sales promotion, mail order and other forms of activity but statistics are not always available.

Who's spending?

* Total UK adspend, reflecting advertising spending in total, i.e. includes production costs and advertising agency fees and commission as well as media expenditure.