Online Advertising to Surpass Newspaper Advertising by 2011

I saw an interesting article today on Search Engine Watch reported by the Financial Times. The 2007 annual research report from the Financial Times reports that online advertising, if it stays at its current growth rate of 21 % per year, will surpass newspaper advertising by 2011.

The report stats that online advertising will be at $62 billion by 2011, while print advertising will be at $60 billion by 2011. The study was done by the media sector by Veronis Shuler Stevenson.

It should come as no surprise if you have followed the trends of newspaper advertising over the past 5 years. The surprise comes from online advertising continued growth in numbers and its potential to leapfrog newspaper advertising.

In a related story, I recently talked about Google diving head first into radio advertising and offering that service through the same Adwords dashboard. However, they are also offering newspaper advertising through the same dashboard in an attempt to offer advertising through every medium except television.

One thing I believe the report is failing to mention however is the rise in online advertising for newspapers. Technically it falls within "online advertising" but the newspapers are reaping the benefits. While traditional print advertising has declined, it could be represented more as a shift towards online instead of a decline.

According to the VSS report, television will still represent the biggest share in advertising dollars with a forecasted amount of $86 billion by 2011.

Also, an interesting point covered was the media usage per person at home declined by half a percentage point while media usage per person at work increased 3.2%. Get back to work people!