The local ad pie is growing faster than expected, but traditional media owns only a thin slice. An upgraded Borrell Associates forecast finds a reshuffled business landscape, with smaller, service-driven advertisers that radio sellers will have to reach in new ways.
For 2026, Borrell now projects 8.6% growth in local digital, up from 4.5%. For 2027, it expects 6.7%, up from 4.3%. Digital will claim 75% of local advertising by the end of next year and about 80% by 2030, up from roughly 71% in 2025.
Traditional media is moving the other way. Borrell projects local radio advertising will fall 4.5% in 2026, with broadcast television down 4%, local newspapers down 12%, and direct mail flat. Overall, traditional local advertising is forecast to decline 3.8% this year and 3.5% in 2027. Total US local advertising is projected at $155.6 billion in 2027, up 3.9% from 2026 and an upgrade from the previous 2.6% estimate.
Borrell Associates SVP of Local Market Intelligence Corey Elliott said, “Though traditional media companies will rake in more than $18 billion in digital ad revenue this year, it represents a fairly small share, 16% of the total digital pie. The pie is now growing faster, so their challenge will be to maintain market share by keeping up with the digital growth.”
In February 2026, the RAB Digital Benchmarking Report, produced by Borrell, put radio’s 2025 digital revenue at about $2.3 billion, or 24.4% of the industry total. Borrell forecast 9.5% digital growth in 2026, reaching $2.5 billion.
The research also found a “great reshuffling” of local businesses. The US added about 1.6 million business establishments between 2020 and 2025, a 15% increase to 12.1 million. Information-sector establishments grew 49%, professional and business services grew 29%, and health and education grew 20%, while retail, wholesale, and transportation combined grew 4%. The average private business shrank from 12.7 employees to 11.3.
Elliott said, “This is a good news, bad news story for media companies. There are millions more potential advertisers, but they’re increasingly smaller businesses concentrated in service industries. Reaching them requires a different approach to advertising sales.”
He added that print, broadcast, and outdoor companies have relied heavily on local retailers such as department stores, tire stores, florists, jewelers, and furniture stores, and that a much smaller universe of retailers now exists in every market.
Online video is the fastest-growing category, with Borrell forecasting 10% growth in 2027 after 13.5% in 2026. Borrell Associates CEO Gordon Borrell said new-to-TV customers are now able to take advantage of video, and asked, “who will get to them first and make it phenomenally easy for them to buy?”
Radio Ink’s previous coverage of Borrell had pointed to slowing local digital growth, but the new forecasts draw on more than 1,700 documents from 833 organizations and cover 101 business categories across 3,143 US counties.
Borrell will present the findings in a free webinar at 11a ET on November 11.
