by Tatiana Repkova

Online ad spend in the UK overtook national newspapers and broke the £2 billion barrier in 2006. According to research published today by the Internet Advertising Bureau advertising online grew by 41.2 per cent to £2.016 billion as marketers moved their budgets away from traditional platforms. In 2006 newspaper advertising recorded growth of 0.2 per cent to £1.9 billion and a market share of 10.9 per cent, the internet's share of all UK advertising revenues rose to 11.4 per cent, up from 7.8 per cent in 2005. In 2006, the internet was just over half the size of the TV advertising market, which experienced a fall of 4.7 per cent to £3.9 billion last year. Online boosted the declining UK ad market and brought overall growth of 1.1 per cent of the UK industry as traditional media combined fell by £466.1 million year-on-year - a 2.9 per cent decline. The growth of paid-for search increased by 52 per cent to £1.2 billion of total online ad spend (a 57.8 per cent share). Online classified advertising rose 45 per cent to £379 million, a share of 18.8 per cent. This is in contrast to traditional press classified advertising that, according to the results, experienced a significant decrease of 7.8 per cent year-on-year. http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story3245.shtml; March 28, 2007

by Tatiana Repkova

Online jobs service Monster Worldwide Inc. is working with privately held software company Adicio to supply classified advertising to 250 US newspaper Web sites, Monster.com executives have said. The deal allows Web news outlets to let job seekers and employees list themselves on Monster services. Monster users can buy print advertising with news outlets that use Adicio. It also would let Adicio's news Web site customers co-brand their sites with Monster.

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by Tatiana Repkova

Thailand's army-backed government on March 13 approved a ban on alcohol ads and raised the drinking age to 20 in its latest move to curb youth drinking. The new law, which still needs approval from the junta-appointed parliament, bans advertisements for alcohol in all Thai media, said Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla.

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by Tatiana Repkova

A CEO survey conducted in the US by Folio and Readex Research reveals that even though publishers are launching new initiatives in both print and online, print has remained the dominant revenue stream for the past two years, accounting for 50 per cent of total revenue in 2005 and 49 per cent in 2006. However, as print revenues decline, the survey points to the need for publishers to focus their attention online where advertisers, consumers and business professionals are increasingly turning their attention. And while the survey showed that online revenue growth is beginning to eclipse the loss in print dollars for publishers, it also showed that much of the revenue returns for online publishing continue to be theoretic. In 2006, for example, web advertising accounted for just 10 per cent of the total revenue mix, up from 8 per cent in 2005. Folio reporter Marrecca Fiore told Update that it could be some time before things change. “It’s really a case of the publishers learning to monetise the web,” she said, adding: “It’s all still new and publishers have been selling web ad rates dirt cheap. It’s up to them to set new rates and we expect things to eventually improve over the next few years.” http://www.fipp.com/Default.aspx?PageIndex=2002&ItemId=13522; March 7, 2007

by Tatiana Repkova

The global online ad industry could hit $81.1 billion by 2011, according to a lengthy report released by American research firm Piper Jaffray & Co. “The User Revolution” looks at the internet as a form of mass media and anticipates a 21 per cent annual growth rate through 2011. Piper Jaffray believes the major internet trend is towards consumers, who will increasingly take control of content and branding. Piper Jaffray points out the increasing number of user-generated content sites like YouTube, MySpace and Flickr. The firm says that internet usage patterns are changing, moving traffic away from traditional web portals to these types of sites which the firm has dubbed “communitainment” sites. Piper Jaffray also believes that media is becoming increasingly fragmented, meaning that advertisers will have to buy more and more inventory in a variety of different mediums to gain the impact they want. The company also says that search will play a more prominent role and that online video will see more advertising growth as ad dollars shift away from traditional media. www.adotas.com; http://www.fipp.com/Default.aspx?PageIndex=2002&ItemId=13580; 7 March 2007