What are the biggest issues and challenges facing media today? A retrospective and update.

TL;DR: The Evolution of Media Industry Challenges (2013 vs. Today)

Quick Answer: According to industry analysis by TrinityP3’s Darren Woolley, while the media advertising industry has advanced its measurement and targeting tools since 2013, it faces a mounting crisis in transparency, data privacy, and programmatic waste. Fundamental agency-marketer disconnects and talent shortages remain unresolved.

Key Takeaways for Marketers & Agencies:

• What Stayed the Same (Persistent Issues): High agency staff churn, ongoing disconnects between marketers and media owners, and the eternal struggle to accurately track cross-channel ROI and attribution.

• What Got Worse (Escalating Crises): Media transparency is now vastly more complex due to non-disclosed, Principal-Based Trading. Additionally, marketers are battling the dominance of Big Tech “Walled Gardens” and navigating strict new data privacy and ownership laws.

• What is New (Modern Challenges): Massive financial leaks from programmatic supply chain wastage (ad fraud), the need to balance AI-driven efficiencies with human strategic ingenuity, and brands aggressively exploring “in-housing” to regain control.

• What Got Better (Industry Improvements): The industry is moving away from the false security of low CPMs by adopting “Attention” metrics, highly robust Market Mix Modelling (MMM), and highly granular audience targeting capabilities.

Source context: This summary tracks the evolution of media challenges from TrinityP3’s original 2013 industry survey to their current, dynamically updated media issues index.

Media is, and seemingly always has been, going through a time of huge transformation. But if you want to understand where the industry is heading, it is highly instructive to look back at where we have come from.

In 2013, Denise Shrivell of MediaScope and TrinityP3 conducted an industry survey to prioritise the issues you and the industry were facing across the media value chain. We offered a list of 12 issues and asked participants to rank them. The results were presented at the State of the Media session at Mumbrella360 with a somewhat provocative tagline:

Is the media industry all talk and no action?

Back then, the top issues included cross-channel audience measurement, staff recruitment and retention, the cost of evolving technology, and a fundamental disconnect between marketers, agencies, and media owners.

Then came the slow-motion train wreck. Just two years after our initial survey, media transparency became a global crisis following the revelations from MediaCom in Australia regarding Media Value Banks, and later, former Mediacom USA CEO Jon Mandel’s exposure of secret kickbacks and commissions.

Today, we maintain a new, dynamic, and far more comprehensive list of the biggest media industry issues, split across six major categories: Relationship, Strategy, Trading, Measurement, Reporting, and Digital & Data.

Looking at our 2013 survey alongside the sprawling reality of today’s media landscape, we have to ask: what has actually changed? What has stayed the same? And is the industry getting better, or are the challenges just getting worse?

What has stayed the same (The Persistent Pain Points)

It is remarkably frustrating how many of the original issues remain unresolved.

• The Industry Disconnect: In 2013, all stakeholders identified an ongoing disconnect and lack of recognition of needs between marketer, agency, and media owner. Today, this lives on in debates over agency roster alignment, PESO management (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned), and who ultimately controls the marketing outcomes.

• The Talent Drain: Recruitment and retention was the number one issue for media owners back in 2013. Today, “staff churn” remains a critical issue in media agency relationships, with marketers constantly asking if they are losing critical people too quickly and having to re-educate fresh faces on the vagaries of their business.

• The Holy Grail of Measurement: “Tracking media ROI and attribution” was on the original list. Today, we are still arguing about the interplay of multiple metrics and the notorious flaws of attribution modelling.

What is worse (The Escalating Crises)

Some issues that were mere footnotes a decade ago have metastasised into existential threats.

• Transparency and Trading: In 2013, we worried about “billing structures.” Today, the transparency issue is incredibly complex, dominated by non-disclosed, Principal-Based Trading. Marketers are forced to constantly question if the price advantages they receive are coming at the expense of quality, and whether they trust their agency to deliver an equitable share of added value.

• Fragmentation and the Walled Gardens: “Fragmenting markets” in 2013 meant the early rise of social media. Today, we are dealing with the immense, unchecked power of Tech Giants (Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, TikTok). Assessing the reliability of data coming from behind these Walled Gardens, coupled with dwindling linear TV audiences, has made cross-screen optimisation a nightmare.

• Data Privacy and Ownership: Originally a minor concern, this is now a massive legal and regulatory minefield. With the introduction of strict new privacy laws and the deprecation of tracking methodologies, data security and compliance are keeping marketers awake at night.

What is new (The Modern Headaches)

The sheer complexity of the modern media category has birthed entirely new challenges that weren’t even on the radar during the Mumbrella360 panel.

• Programmatic Supply Chain Wastage: A massive new financial leak in the digital ecosystem. Marketers are having to actively limit and carefully police their use of the Open Web just to avoid bleeding their budgets to ad fraud and invisible intermediaries.

• Artificial Intelligence: AI presents a double-edged sword. The new challenge is not just how to harness AI for efficiency, but how to balance AI’s recommendations with human ingenuity. If AI directs everyone to advertise where their category competitors are, how do you stand out?

• In-Housing: As a direct response to a lack of trust and a desire for control, brands are aggressively exploring in-housing—weighing the substantial benefits of taking back control against the significant operational costs and risks.

What is getting better (The Silver Linings)

It isn’t all doom and gloom. While the complexity has increased, so too has the sophistication of our tools.

• Advanced Measurement Capabilities: We are finally moving past the false security of low CPMs. The industry is actively embracing the “Value of Attention” as a core metric.

• Market Mix Modelling (MMM): While we were struggling with basic digital attribution in 2013, today marketers have access to highly robust MMM and independent models that can provide a much clearer picture of effectiveness versus efficiency.

• Granular Targeting: Our ability to find “audiences within audiences” has vastly improved. We now have the technological capability for deep content customisation specific to the exact audience reached, reducing traditional mass-market wastage.

Are we still all talk and no action?

Back in 2013, we debated whether the industry was simply talking in circles. Over a decade later, the media industry has certainly taken action—but the technology, the tech giants, and the sheer volume of data have evolved faster than many could keep up with.

The focus now has to shift from merely identifying these problems to actively managing them. We can no longer afford to “set and forget” our media relationships, our trading models, or our campaign measurement.

We invite you to review our comprehensive, dynamically updated list of the biggest media advertising industry issues here, and we encourage you to have your say on how these issues are evolving.