Media and Advertising Market Trends of Slovenia in 2021

The economic context of the media market

Only two years ago, in 2020, the growth of advertising investments once again slowed down, as the situation worsened – due to the COVID pandemic. The first four months of 2021 were also quite turbulent, as there was an increase in the number of COVID-cases and hospitalizations, which led the government to announce a partial lockdown. Once again, we closed schools, and a ban of sales on non-essential goods and services was introduced. 
Finally, in the middle of 2021, the government officially proclaimed the end of the pandemic, with preventive measures staying in force. We at last started recovering from the crisis: the advertising market has been growing rapidly after the 10-15% drop in investments that has been observed during the pandemic. Our agency's net estimation for investments in 2020 was EUR 130M, and for this year is almost 153M that is 17% higher.
We are expecting the full recovery of the market and reaching the pre- COVID level of investments by the end of 2022.

The political context of the media market

At the end of 2020, a new dispute between the (then) ruling government and STA (Slovenian Press Agency) aroused. It started because an STA-interview with a famous Slovenian rapper was longer than an article about a government meeting. Upon the case, the government requested business data of STA (such as gross salaries of employees (with name), contracts and bank statements) from the company. STA did not comply this request, so the government stopped funding STA, a company 100% owned by the Republic of Slovenia. After a lot of struggle back and forth, a new director was elected. At the beginning of his term, he met a government representative from UKOM (Government Communication Office) and signed a contract to finance the press agency. 
The previous year was tumultuous for our national television, RTV as well. They also had a conflict with the government, and experienced a change in management, and canceling (or restructuring) famous TV shows.

Major changes in the media market

As expected, online advertising keeps growing continually. The 2021 AdEx report by IAB states that a higher demand for online advertising is already affecting the pricing policy. A large part of the growth can be attributed to display advertising.

Balkan countries are leaders in the CEE-region – when it comes to time spent watching TV. In Slovenia, the average consumer spends 4 hours a day in front of the big screen, which is considerably more than in countries in other parts of Europe. Ergo stand the steady budgets for TV-advertising and its biggest share in the media mix. This year, at the Slovenian national television, RTV, there was no free capacity in the ad airtime. Therefore, for the first time in history, a Slovenian TV-sales house temporarily stopped accepting new orders, and raised their prices – according to demand and inflation. All other TV-stations raised their prices as well, due to the inflation.

During the COVID-pandemic, the OOH-sector lost most of their investments, as brands reasonably did not want to advertise when no one was in the streets. After a rough time, the segment finally started catching up. Compared to last year, OOH has a 2% growth within the media mix.
In June 2021, Adria News introduced a new info portal in their portfolio: N1. This portal is also present in the Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian market.

Major trends of media consumption

This year, TikTok has gained a lot of popularity in Slovenia. Only in the first half of 2021, the number of users grew by 47% in comparison to 2020. Advertising on TikTok is still not available in our country, but more and more companies have TikTok profiles and they are present – supported by young influencers. 
Other social media, especially Facebook and Instagram, are still growing and expanding their registered users in Slovenia. The biggest change in 2021 was of course the iOS privacy-change and the release of Instagram Reels, which was most of all an answer to the popularity of TikTok. Reels and TikTok helped keep the video format as the most trendy and popular way of being present on social media.
Another growing trend that remains is Online TV. Almost 28% – that is an 8% growth YoY – of Slovenians have watched VOD in 2021. Global platforms such as Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime are very popular here, so Slovenian companies took this chance, and released their own platforms. The largest Slovenian VOD platform is Voyo. They are investing in locally produced content that is exclusively streamed on their platform in order to increase the number of subscribers.