A report from BIA’s The Kelsey Group should be a kick in the rear for local media to get its mobile plan in order.  At the same time, another report from the same group empahsizes the importance of having a strong mobile ad plan in place — it projects the local online ad spend to start dropping.  InternetNews.com writes:

Local mobile ad revenue will grow to $3.1 billion in 2013, up from $160 million last year, while mobile search will reach $2.3 billion, according to the firm’s forecasts. Local searches made up 27.8 percent of all searches in 2008, but are expected to hit 35.1 percent in 2013, according to the report, “Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity.”

In another recent study, “U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast (2008-2013),” BIA/Kelsey forecast U.S. local advertising revenues to decline from $155.3 billion in 2008 to $144.4 billion in 2013, representing a negative 1.4 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

Only the local interactive segment will show growth throughout the forecast period. All other local media will experience marginal to rapid declines in the next 18 to 36 months. A small number of traditional media will rebound with a revived economy beginning in 2011, though most traditional media will continue to decline, albeit at a slower pace, according to the report.

We have had plenty of opportunities before to shift our efforts to where the money is going, but as an industry we’ve simply been too slow to change. Here, again, is an opportunity. Terry Heaton is right when he writes that our local news applications will need to be free downloads because  “There may be hard-core fans willing to pay for access to special applications, but as a general brand-extension play, paid mobile applications are just wishful thinking.”

No more wishful thinking. Follow the money.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 11:56 am and is filed under MediaReinvent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.