The sharp decline in television advertising in the Netherlands is of a temporary nature, consultancy PwC told the Financieele Dagblad on Wednesday.

In its annual forecast for the media sector, PwC said the TV spend would decline by a maximum €70m to some €920m this year. The company said this should be regarded as a wake-up call for the TV industry which has never before witnessed a decline in the advertising spend.

PwC noted a big increase in delayed viewing such as ‘programme missed’ and films as well as Netflix. Young people are tuning in on YouTube films, Instagram and Snapchat.

The drop in TV advertising was more than compensated for by a strong increase in advertising on the internet, the consultancy said.