For news publishers, there's no doubt that the digital age has well and truly arrived. eMarketer published a report in January predicting that online advertising spending in the United States will overtake print this year. 

Spending on online ads in the US grew by 23% last year, totaling $32.03 billion, estimates eMarketer. The company, which provides analysis of internet market trends based on its own assessment of ad selling companies' reported revenues as well as on data from other industry sources, predicts that online ad spending will grow another 23.3% this year, to reach $39.5 billion. 

Meanwhile, US print advertising, which totaled an estimated $36 billion in 2011, is expected to drop to $33.8 billion. 

In mid December last year, 10% of adults in the US owned a tablet computer and 10% owned an ebook reader. According to a report published by PEW today, by early January this year both of these figures had jumped to 19%. 

The same report estimated that the number of American adults who owned at least one tablet or eReader leapt from 18% in December to 29% in January.

Father Christmas's generosity seems likely to have a big impact on publishers. According to a poll by IDG Connect, 72% of 210 surveyed worldwide professionals say that they bought fewer newspapers after getting an iPad. According to the same research, as Paid Content reports, 70% of participants also said that they bought fewer books. 

Although the sample data is small, the trends are obvious: tablet sales are booming, print is losing out. 

A rough economic climate made 2011 a hard year in Britain, both for local business and for local newspapers. But perhaps a problem shared is a problem halved for the two industries, as the Newspaper Society has named the winners of its Local Business Accelerators scheme, which supports new business while promoting local newspaper advertising. 

The scheme, launched last year, and described as a "special partnership between your local newspaper and selected businesses in your community", encouraged UK start-ups to apply for a chance to win a three month advertising campaign with their local paper, as well as mentoring from a business expert. 

The initiative is backed by Deborah Meaden from Dragon's Den, who will mentor the overall national winner, to be chosen later this year.