Here’s the page one statistic of the week, maybe even the year, especially for those in print publishing, but also for those in the TV, movie, music and advertising industries. The Internet will shortly produce more advertising revenue than newspapers and become the second largest US advertising medium by revenue, behind only television, according to a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report. It said that, excluding mobile ads, Internet advertising will grow to $34.4 billion in 2014 from $24.2 billion in 2009.
“Although the Internet did not fully escape the impact of the recession, its decline in the United States was much less severe than that of other advertising media,” the report said.
It attributed this to shifts in consumer behavior from print media to the internet and increased broadband penetration especially in the US.
The report said that in 2005, US broadband penetration was 34%. It’s now an estimated 64% of residences.
Contributing to increased broadband penetration, the report said, will be the US government’s subsidy to build broadband networks and the increased availability of triple-play packages. It predicted accelerating growth for interactive media, video and email from $4.7 billion in 2009 to $6.6 billion in 2014.