What’s the outlook for US out of home revenue in 2020?  Billboard Insider and Signvalue have prepared projections showing that US out of home revenues could drop 9-14% for the full year 2020.

Clear Media China’s experience

China experienced peak disruption from the Coronavirus in January and February and now the country is returning to work.  Clear Media, Clear Channel Outdoor’s 51% owned subsidiary had a 30% decline in year to date sales through February.  See this slide from Clear Media’s 2019 earnings release.

Billboard Insider Forecast

Out of home sales were up by approximately 5% for the first two months of the year.  If you apply the Chinese experience to the US and assume revenues start recovering from coronavirus from July-on then total US revenues will be down by 14% for the whole year.  Political will provide a much needed boost in the fourth quarter.

Signvalue Forecast

Paul Wright of Signvalue has a slightly more optimistic  forecast in which revenues are down 9% for the full year.  It assumes a faster bounce-back.   Wright cautions that this forecast is based on no coronavirus mutation recurrence.

Group M’s Brian Wieser said this about the outlook for US out of home spending on yesterday’s Digiday Podcast:  “Outdoor almost certainly fares worse just because if advertisers don’t think that anyone will see their ads then they’re just unlikely to allocate resources that direction…”  What’s interesting is that a lot of people are still seeing out of home ads.  US traffic volumes were only off 30% last week.   See today’s Insider post on traffic counts.

What do you think of these projections?  Too optimistic or too pessimistic?  Email billboardinsider@gmail.com or use the form below.  We’ll publish the responses.

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