Television advertising revenues increased by 24% year-on-year during the third quarter, totaling GEL 15.9 million, which includes advertising, sponsorship, product placement, notices and teleshopping. Notably, direct advertising accounted for 87% of all advertising revenues, while sponsorship and product placement accounted for 6% each. 

The largest revenue figures in Q3 were posted by Imedi TV (GEL 6.1 million, which represents a 20% increase year-on-year). Rustavi 2 posted revenues totaling GEL 2.9 million, which represents a 22% decrease. The largest percentage growth figures were posted by TV Pirveli and Mtavari Arkhi. The advertising revenues of TV Pirveli totaled GEL 1.4 million, which represents a 71% increase. Mtavari Arkhi’s revenues also amounted to GEL 1.4 million. The broadcaster had only collected GEL 0.02 million in advertising revenues during the third quarter of 2019. GDS TV collected GEL 0.5 million, while PosTV and Silknet collected GEL 0.4 million each. The advertising revenues of the Georgian Public Broadcaster fell by 14% to GEL 0.28 million. Combined revenues of other broadcasters amounted to GEL 1.8 million.

The Communications Commission issued the forecast for the 2020 advertising revenues during the first quarter of this year. In spite of growth in Q1 and Q3, total revenues for the first three quarters of 2020 decreased by 7% year-on-year. Considering that this year the advertising market includes paid political advertising, the Commission expects political adverts to compensate for the decrease in the activity of the commercial sector, meaning that the advertising market will not suffer significant losses for the year.