The Voice Over market is estimated to be worth $4.4 billion annually, according to a report from Voices.com, a large global online marketplace for voice over talent and audio services.
The Voice Over market is estimated to be worth $4.4 billion annually, according to a report from Voices.com, a large global online marketplace for voice over talent and audio services.
The Report on the Global Voice Over Market is said to be the first such research available and it sheds light on the size and scope of the voice over market worldwide.
Data was collected from Voices.coms database of more than 250,000 national and international job transactions, as well as publicly available industry statistics. The report also covers the opportunities that exist within the industry, including areas of interest and growth.
Emerging as the largest spender on voice over, the entertainment industry accounts for 58% of the voice over work completed globally. Perhaps surprisingly, projects completed for the advertising industry and for business purposes take near equal shares of the global work done, at 19 and 18% respectively. The education sector rounds out the remainder at 5%. In North America, however, corporate promotional work leads with the greatest share of voice over at 24%.
On a more granular level, there are some unexpected findings regarding the type of projects and where they happen geographically. Surprisingly radio commercials represent less than 1% of the total market, according to the report.
Globally, animation specifically videos less than 20 minutes represent slightly more than half of the total work done, but in North America, there is only about one-fifth of total voice over spending.
North America, on the other hand, had proportionately much greater shares of the total work completed in corporate promotional videos, internet videos and audiobook projects, with those happening significantly more often than elsewhere in the world. This geographic discrepancy is seen as significant and predictive of broader trends.
Considering the research findings against our internal data, we are seeing a significant shift in the role and prevalence of voice over, noted David Ciccarelli, Voices.com co-founder and CEO.
In North America, were not observing an actual decline in animation work, but the growth of other types of projects is growing at a faster rate. Consider how video has become part of our daily lives; social streams, formerly full of pictures, are now near exclusively full of video. Whether those are promo reels, educational pieces or otherwise, they require a voice. This auditory dimension of how we consume media is prevalent in ways weve never seen before, and we expect this shift in North America to be experienced further on a global level.
