Asian net advertising revenues, measured after discounts across 14 markets, will grow at 5.0% this year to top US$121 billion according to a report from Media Partners Asia (MPA).

And this bullish forecast notwithstanding, MPA projects a re-acceleration in growth in 2015 with the advertising market to expand at 5.7%. Between 2014 and 2019, MPA expects net advertising in Asia to climb at an average annual growth rate of 4.5%.

However the report does contain some cautionary issues for the TV industry. MPA calculates that TV’s share of the advertising market peaked in 2011 at 42.9% and while still resilient, market share has been edging downwards, reaching 41.6% in 2014 with MPA projecting 40.7% share by 2019. Looking at mature markets, MPA believes that TV will remain a growth media in Hong Kong and to a smaller extent, Australia but the future will be more challenging in Japan and Singapore. In Korea, terrestrial TV also faces a challenging future. In growth markets, TV’s best performers, from a relatively high base, will be Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam

Digital has overtaken TV to be the largest media in terms of advertising on Australia; by 2019, it will also be the largest media by advertising in China, Korea and New Zealand.

Commenting on the findings, MPA executive director Vivek Couto said: “The macro landscape is uneven and there are headwinds to economic growth across Asia Pacific. Encouragingly, governments and policymakers across the region have implemented reforms to address structural issues and this trend is likely to accelerate in markets where positive political change has occurred.

“Ad spends from large multinational advertisers softened through much of 2014, partially offset by spends from domestic advertisers but this has dampened growth across Southeast Asia and other key markets. Multinational advertising demand may return but weakness across global emerging and developed ad markets may exert downward pressure on Asia.”