Lee Stephens.
The AdNews end-of-year Perspectives, looking back at 2025 and forward to next year.
And see the AdNews 50 plus page state of the market report, Forecast 2026
Lee Stephens – Executive Chair – Meerkat Media.
Without the benefit of an Olympics or Australian Federal Election 2026 doesn’t have a home run for event led growth. MAGNA tipped 2025 total media growth before revising the figure down to just over 5% mid-year, in line with most other predictors. Early 2026 estimates are predicting similar growth of around 5% across the entire media market. The IAB is more bullish on digital media on the back of stunning growth in FY25 of 10.6% on average, and the whopping 21.9% growth in video formats and 14.1% in audio over FY24.
The missing picture is understanding the effect of media cost inflation versus real growth in demand. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) Outlook predicted that the rise in the actual cost to buy media, whether by placement, reach or click will rise by around 5% in 2025. The same as the widely accepted growth of the total media market in 2025.
Far from illustrating no market growth, it shows a very tough path ahead for media on the wrong side of the structural realignment of the media industry. 2026 promises to be grim at best for already ailing media channels. Not all digital media channels are immune. Digital display spends are plateauing as advertisers rapidly adopt video, audio and secure their competitive positions in paid search.
Is printed news sustainable?
A key question for news publishers in 2026 is whether daily print publishing of Australia’s iconic metro mastheads is viable. This is not an Australian problem, it’s global. The New York Times has committed to daily printing with a plan to “phase down print frequency” from 2030. USA Today abandoned print in 2022. In June 2025, the Washington Post announced that it was condensing ‘lift-out sections within the print publication into a single lift out. While only speculation for the Washington Post, stripping lift-outs has been a precursor to further cuts in the future across major print news publications.
At home, Nine and News significantly restructured their publishing divisions in 2024. News Corp Australia’s FY2025 filings reported an approximately 6% due to mostly lower print advertising sales (Source: News Corp). Importantly, the result of lower advertising revenues magnifies profit losses as print, paper and distribution costs proportionately increase as print copies decrease. It’s a painful process for a legacy business, however News has more than compensated in Australia with Realestate.com.au.
Nine Entertainment faces the same issues however they are more pragmatic after selling their magazine assets to Bauer in 2012. For example, they cut the Australian Financial Review’s edition in 2024, 5 years after the purchase of Fairfax, ending 70 years of AFR print publishing in WA. In hindsight, were Nine Entertainment attracted to the Fairfax print empire, their audiences or just the potential of Domain. The most likely answer is the dangers of another purchaser in an uncertain media landscape.
Digital Technology and the transition to first-party data tracking taking a share of media budgets.
A perfect storm has been brewing over the effective measurement of digital media performance for years. That storm is about to break in 2026. Third-party cookie measurement was cheap, and thanks to a cosy in-house partnership between Google and Google Analytics (GA), the data was beautifully displayed. A GA screenshot was a sensation in board meetings, providing the first concrete real-time evidence of media effectiveness.
The world changed. The Meta family of businesses came along with their own set of graphs and charts. Sales conversion reports between Google and Meta made no sense to acute marketers. Media reporting from their digital investment didn’t remotely match actual sales.
It gets much worse. Browsers outside Google Chrome dumped third-party performance tracking. Primarily because of privacy concerns, however there was most certainly a realisation that Google Analytics was open to bias. In Australia, multiple sources estimate Google’s share of desktop browsing is around 64% and approximately 49% for mobile due to Australian’s love of Apple’s iPhone. The result is an effective reach of Chrome around 54.6% across all platforms in late 2025.
In short, relying on attribution reporting using third-party tracking excludes the performance of 45% of an advertiser’s media investment sitting outside Chrome.
While this attribution shortfall was acceptable when digital media investment was 10% of total media spend 20 years ago, it is far from acceptable when digital media’s share of Australia’s total media pie is forecast to reach 75% in 2026.
Brands, independent retailers, franchise networks and B2B advertisers that are not in the process of developing a first party data, privacy compliant strategies are already behind the curve.
In understanding the likely 2026 media industry growth, it’s important to consider where the investment in a transition to effective first party data tracking will come from. As with adserving costs, it is going to come out of the media budgets. Unlike variable adserving costs, the transition to owned, managed and controlled data has significant fixed costs including data specialists, platform and data fees and media analysts.
The transition can be done affordably, extravagantly and presents significant risk. Regardless of execution the cost will inevitably affect media budgets.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.