Global consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest point in decades, media’s share of discretionary spending has hit a 27-year low, but broadcast radio is navigating the turbulence with digital audio tying for the strongest growth of any tracked media category.
Those findings come from PQ Media’s Global Media Forecast 2026-2030, released Wednesday, which tracks consumer spending across 28 digital and 14 traditional media categories in the top 20 global markets. PQ Media describes itself as a provider of media econometrics.
The firm’s data puts total global consumer spending on media content and technology at $2.439 trillion in 2025, a 2.8% gain that decelerated sharply from 4.4% growth in 2024. Traditional media content and tech spending fell 0.7% to $584.68 billion. The United States remained the world’s largest consumer media market at $553.06 billion.
“Since the Iran War began, consumer confidence indicators have fallen to their lowest level in decades, even surpassing the chaotic years of the Great Recession,” said PQ Media CEO and Founder Patrick Quinn, additionally citing tariffs, rising inflation, and supply chain disruptions following the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz as compounding pressures on consumer media budgets, with indications that further trimming is likely if inflation persists.
“Data shows that the share of discretionary spending allocated for media content and technology peaked at 3% in 2016, but has fallen annually since, except during the 2020-2021 pandemic when consumers were stuck at home. In 2025, the share dropped to 2.4%, the lowest share since 1998,” he added.
Against that backdrop, digital audio streaming posted 13.4% growth in 2025, the fastest of any category PQ Media tracked, alongside satellite radio. However, among PQ Media’s 10 global media spend silos, Total Radio ranked smallest at $33.8 billion in 2025, trailing Magazines and sitting well behind Pure-Play Mobile’s category-leading $572.4 billion.
Quinn attributed the broader deceleration in media spending to the absence of a game-changing new technology, noting that each prior decade was propelled by a category-defining launch, from broadband and MP3 players in the 2000s to smartphones and streaming in the 2010s. AI, he said, remains a “nice-to-have” that has not yet translated into meaningful consumer spending.
PQ Media projects global consumer media spending to rebound to 3.7% growth in 2026, fueled by the FIFA World Cup and Winter Olympics, with the US market forecast at 3.6%.
See Patrick Quinn present new data at Radio Ink‘s Hispanic Radio Conference 2026 at the Hilton Phoenix Tapatio Cliffs Resort on May 27-28. Early Bird Pricing ends May 5. Secure your seat at the best price now.
