European advertising expenditure hits €187bn as digital video surges 18%

The shift in European advertising expenditure signals a definitive transition where digital video is no longer a secondary channel but the primary driver of growth. As linear TV revenues decline by nearly double digits, the concentration of ad dollars within global OTT platforms creates a challenging environment for local broadcasters attempting to scale their own digital offerings. This trend forces a realignment of media buying strategies toward tech intermediaries who now control up to 67% of total market spend in leading regions like the UK. Moving forward, watch for whether Italy and Spain’s relatively high linear TV retention begins to erode as digital video penetration approaches the 50% threshold.

The acceleration of digital video advertising across Europe is reshaping competitive dynamics among broadcasters and platforms. In the UK, digital video overtook linear TV as the largest video advertising category for the first time in 2025, with total digital video ad revenue reaching £7.2 billion according to Thinkbox's annual revenue report published in March 2026. France's SRI (Syndicat des Régies Internet) reported a similar inflection point, with digital video ad spend in France growing 21% year-over-year to €3.8 billion in 2025, driven primarily by connected TV and short-form video formats on platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Germany's OWM (Organisation Werbungtreibende im Markenverband) confirmed that CTV advertising in Germany surpassed €2 billion in net revenue during 2025, a milestone that reflects advertiser migration toward addressable and programmatic video inventory.

The business implications for European broadcasters are intensifying as platform concentration grows. Confindustria Radio TV's data aligns with broader concerns raised by the European Broadcasting Union, which warned in June 2026 that global platforms now capture between 60% and 70% of digital video ad revenue in most EU member states, leaving public-service and commercial broadcasters with shrinking digital margins. The European Commission's Digital Markets Act enforcement actions have begun to intersect with this dynamic: the Commission opened a formal investigation into Google's ad-tech stack in April 2026, examining whether self-preferencing in ad serving and exchange functions distorts competition for European publishers and broadcasters. Meanwhile, Italy's AGCOM published updated guidelines in May 2026 requiring greater transparency from digital platforms on ad revenue sharing with local content producers, a move that Confindustria Radio TV has publicly supported.

Technical measurement and attribution remain a friction point as budgets shift. The Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards (JICWEBS) in the UK published updated CTV measurement guidelines in February 2026, requiring platforms to provide independent verification of viewability and completion rates for connected TV impressions. In parallel, the IAB Europe released its 2025 Video Ad Spend Benchmark Report in July 2026, which found that programmatic CTV transactions grew 34% year-over-year across Europe, with header bidding adoption among European publishers reaching 41%. These measurement developments matter directly for the Confindustria Radio TV findings because they determine whether the reported digital video growth figures reflect genuine incremental spend or simply budget reallocation that was previously untracked.