Google and Facebook will hold approximately 70 percent of all digital ad revenue in the United Kingdom by 2020, recent analyses have uncovered, as reported The Sun. By 2020, the two of the largest Internet giants in the world are expected to account for 71 percent of all digital advertising revenue in the country, OC&C Strategy Consultants wrote in a recent report. While the estimates vary, most industry watchers agree that Google and Facebook will keep increasing their advertising share in the UK, noting how those trends are concerning as they mark the rise of an unprecedented marketing duopoly.
Members of the media previously argued that the UK government would never allow a traditional media duopoly that’s comparable in size to that which Google and Facebook are currently developing, claiming that regulators would be adamant to break up such a structure in an effort to ensure media plurality. Regardless, Facebook and Google are currently on the path of taking even more of the UK’s digital advertising market that was already worth £20 billion ($24.86 billion) in 2015, while traditional media outlets are struggling to stay in business, with their share of the market decreasing from about a half to approximately ten percent in the last decade.
The issue of U.S. tech giants taking advertising revenue from UK media goes even deeper in light of the fact that neither company exists to fund responsible journalism that holds those in power accountable for their actions, some industry watchers argue. While the Internet allowed media companies to increase their audience, low ad rates promoted by Internet giants like Google consequently devalued the business as a whole and lowered their revenue even before their market share started dropping in a significant manner. That state of affairs leads to journalists being fired, Press Gazette argues, noting how its newly launched Duopoly campaign is seeking to stop Facebook and Google’s practices that are destroying the journalism industry in the country. The initiative is currently looking for a fair deal that would help news publishers stay in business and fairly compensate content creators who play an integral role in Facebook and Google’s advertising business. It remains to be seen whether the Duopoly campaign manages to fulfill its goal, but an update on the situation should follow later this year.