Even amid rising concerns over near-term economic growth and consumer
spending, Internet display advertising expenditures from January to
June this year grew to $5.6 million, up 17.7 percent from the same period
a year ago, according to a report from TNS Media Intelligence.
“For the first time since 2001, media advertising expenditures have
declined for two consecutive quarters,” president and CEO of TNS
Media Intelligence Steven Fredericks said in a statement.
“Given the uncertainties about near-term economic growth and consumer
spending, we expect core ad spending will continue to face challenges
during the second half of the year.”
The sobering prognostication doesn’t bode well for ad spending in offline media if their 2007 numbers thus far are any indication.
Television ads decreased 2.4 percent to $31.6 billion. Newspapers dropped 5.8
percent to $12.9 billion. And radio decreased 2.7 percent to $5.1 billion, a drop that matches an eMarketer report earlier this month that, for the first time,
online advertising will surpass radio advertising spending in the
U.S.
Newspapers are losing revenue to online advertising, too.
Industry watchers typically blame online classifieds sites such as
Craigslist and eBay, as well as search marketing.
However, online advertising dollars haven’t pinched everyone out of revenue. Magazine ad
spends rose 4.6 percent, as growth in Spanish-language magazines,
consumer magazines and Sunday magazines offset a downturn in spending
on business-to-business, as well as local magazines.
The numbers also seem to suggest that television’s loss, about $769
million in ad spending, is an Internet advertising gain of about $829
million. But that might be an over-simplification.
About.com CEO Scott Meyer, whose site runs its share of
ad-supported videos, recently told InternetNews.com that
the broadcast television model for video content production isn’t
broken yet.
