US Online Advertising To Surpass Radio Adspend
For the first time, online advertising will surpass radio advertising spending in the US, according to a new forecast from eMarketer.
eMarketer expects US radio advertising spending to grow 1.9% during 2007 to $20.5 billion. Although the forecasted growth rate is hardly spectacular between 2006 and 2011, an additional $2.7 billion will be spent on radio advertising.
Radio station websites and in-stream Internet audio advertising will be the principal drivers of this growth.
Ben Macklin, senior analyst and author of the report, said: “While advertising spending is growing rapidly online, it is not necessarily at the expense of radio.
“There seems to be no reason why this market cannot find a new lease on life and benefit from the growth in the online sector. Advertisers should not abandon radio in favour of the Web, but combine the two to take advantage of the unique attributes of each.”
In a separate forecast, eMarketer predicted that local online advertising spending in the US will reach $2.9 billion in 2007 (see US Local Online Advertising To Reach $2.9 Billion)
A forecast from Veronis Suhler Stevenson projected that US online adspend will reach $61.98 billion, surpassing newspapers to become the leading US ad medium in 2011 (see US Online Adspend To Reach $61.98bn).