UK Under-16 Social Media Ban Could Cut £1.3bn From Digital Ads

Britain's decision to bar under-16s from social media has acquired a price tag for the advertising industry: about £1bn. Analysts at eMarketer cut their forecast for UK digital advertising spend in 2027 by £1.3bn, to £17bn, once they had modelled what happens when millions of teenagers vanish from the platforms where brands reach them.

The money is not expected to disappear so much as relocate. With the ban due to take effect early next year, advertisers lose the ability to target under-16s on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube, and the leading bet across the industry is that a large slice of that spending follows the same young audiences onto streaming services and family television.

Those numbers explain the nerves. Research by Beano Brain, a kids and family research agency, found that among seven- to 14-year-olds a third said YouTube ads and YouTubers were how they found out about things they wanted to buy. A quarter pointed to TikTok videos; 22% credited TV ads. Take the first two away and television, especially the ad-supported tiers of streaming, starts to look like the obvious destination.

Helenor Gilmour, head of the DC Thomson-owned agency, expects exactly that shift.

"There is certainly going to be a period of readjustment. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ have ad tiers now, and kids are all over those platforms. We will see a big shift [in ad spend] moving in that direction, they will be big winners and soak up quite a bit of the YouTube revenue."

Helenor Gilmour, Beano Brain

She also expects traditional TV to gain around big family event shows such as I'm A Celebrity and Britain's Got Talent. The audience is already there: in the four years since Amazon, Disney+ and Netflix introduced advertising, the number of UK viewers on ad-supported subscriptions has reached 27 million.

Not everyone sees a hit. James Kirkham, a brand strategist whose clients have included JD Sports, Netflix and Chelsea, called the idea that the money simply evaporates mad, arguing the ban pushes brands to reach young people through sport and schools instead. Joseph Petyan, chief executive of the WPP-owned agency VML, was blunter: large advertisers won't be scared by the ban because most are not targeting children on social media in the first place, even with budgets squeezed by a UK economy where inflation has cooled to 2.8%.

Advertisers aimed at the young have worked under tight rules for years, from Ofcom's 2006 ban on junk-food ads around children's programmes to this year's crackdown on junk-food advertising online and before 9pm on TV. Meta, Snapchat and YouTube have all criticised the new measure, which goes further than Australia's, warning it will push teenagers toward less regulated corners of the internet.

eMarketer's own analysts think the pain is front-loaded. Bill Fisher, a principal analyst there, said the effect would be concentrated in the first year before growth rebounds, as platforms lean harder into adult users, creator-led discovery and shopping formats. If he is right, the £1.3bn is less a hole than a detour, and the real question for British advertisers is not whether the money leaves social media but how fast the platforms can win it back.