The out‑of‑home market already sits among the strongest performers in advertising, growing around 9% a year for the past decade and now accounting for roughly 18% of total ad spend. In 2025 the sector reported net media revenue of about $1449.5 million, including $406.3 million in the final quarter alone, up a little over 3% on the same period a year earlier, according to the industry association behind the category. This steady expansion has drawn the attention of major media owners, with one large broadcaster recently paying about $850 million to acquire a leading outdoor player and signalling just how strategically important digital billboards and screens have become.
The latest upgrade to the MOVE system, short for Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure, looks designed to push that momentum further by providing more granular audience data rather than simple traffic estimates. It now incorporates coverage across 21 additional regional markets to deliver genuine national reach and layers on seasonality and hourly exposure patterns so planners can see how audiences ebb and flow through the day and across the year. Industry specialists expect this richer picture to encourage more confident investment since brands can plan and buy against consistent metrics across both outdoor and indoor environments instead of treating each format as a separate unknown. In practice that means campaigns can be measured using comparable numbers, which makes it easier to justify outdoor alongside other digital and broadcast channels.
Beyond pure reach and frequency, the upgraded system also folds in newer metrics such as measures of audience engagement and gives marketers a better sense of how creative executions actually land in different contexts. The data can show, for example, how an ad might perform differently in a busy commuter hub compared with a suburban shopping centre in a particular season or time of day. That seems likely to encourage more tailored, location‑specific creative and tighter alignment between message, placement and environment rather than one generic design rolled out everywhere. However, agencies caution that the shift will evolve gradually, and early changes will probably focus on more disciplined planning and consistent reporting, with deeper integration into always‑on and performance‑driven strategies happening as teams become more comfortable with the tools and as programmatic buying in outdoor scales up.
Looking ahead, the combination of a fast‑growing revenue base and more sophisticated measurement appears likely to keep outdoor in the spotlight for advertisers seeking both broad reach and accountable results. The industry body behind MOVE suggests the system is built for future growth and positions out‑of‑home as a channel that can reach the vast majority of the local population each week while still being planned at a detailed audience level. If the promised transparency and comparability hold up, the sector seems likely to attract fresh budgets from other media and to push existing advertisers towards more nuanced and data‑informed use of outdoor assets, even though the full impact will probably play out over several years rather than overnight.
