YouTube has blown past prestige streamers like Netflix and Disney+ to become the biggest TV company by viewership. And the traditional media business is about to get another wake-up call.
This year, ad revenue from creator-driven platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn will exceed ad revenue driven by studios and media companies known for their professionally made content, WPP Media’s new mid-year global ad forecast says.
WPP Media — a part of ad holding company giant WPP — estimated that the ad revenue generated by those creator-driven platforms would just exceed the $235 billion driven by TV, audio, print, and cinema companies this year.
That’s a shift from 2019, when WPP estimated that professional content companies’ share of content-based ad revenue topped 70%, with creator-driven platforms driving the rest, said Kate Scott-Dawkins, global president of Business Intelligence at WPP Media.
WPP acknowledged that the definition of the creator economy can be blurry. It adjusted for the fact that some of the revenue generated by those creator-driven platforms comes from professional sources, as when companies like Disney and Comcast put clips on YouTube.
WPP also categorized some of the biggest YouTubers, like MrBeast, who’s made the jump to Amazon’s Prime Video with a competition show, as professional content creators.
While WPP’s estimate includes TikTok, it excludes China-based companies.
WPP separately calculated the revenue going to creators directly. The firm estimated revenue would total about $185 billion in 2025, up 20% from 2024, and double to more than $376 billion by 2030. WPP estimated that about 60% of that revenue comes in the form of brands and sponsorship deals, with the remainder from other sources, including the revenue split that platforms like YouTube share with creators.
WPP said that sources of revenue for traditional media are largely declining.
TV advertising is slated to grow just 1% this year, to $162.5 billion. A quarter of that comes from streaming, which is expected to grow rapidly, by 12.5% in 2025 and to about $72 billion by 2030.
Audio (which includes video advertising formats attached to podcasts) will be flat at $26.5 billion this year.
Print will continue its decline, shedding about 3% to $45.5 billion, according to WPP.
Overall, WPP projects global advertising will grow 6% to $1.08 trillion in 2025, a downgrade from its December forecast of 7.7%. The figure excludes US political advertising.