End Of Year Round-Up: Online
2006 saw the online industry continue to grow as it sought to establish itself further as a mainstream player.
The online advertising market grew year on year reflecting the widespread appeal of the internet.
Expenditure for the first half of the year neared £1 billion as the sector looked to close in on Direct Mail, TV and Press. This seemingly unstoppable rise led to forecasts that more adspend would be shifted online.
This was keenly debated at the MediaTel Insight Online Seminar, where it was suggested that traditional media is in fact still strong and that online media owners themselves were investing in traditional media (see Online Seminar Argues Traditional Media Still Strong).
2006 was also the year where the online industry took long awaited moves towards achieving a single planning currency. This became a greater possibility thanks to the launch of a quarterly internet audience survey led by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK) in agreement with the National Readership Surveys Ltd (NRS) (see Online Planning Currency A Step Closer).
Plans for the creation of JICIMS, the Joint industry Committee for Internet Measurement Systems, were unveiled at the MRG conference in the autumn.
It’s aim was to establish a planning currency for the internet that could sit alongside others such as NRS, BARB and RAJAR (see MRG Conference: JICIMS Moving Forward).
Whilst more recently, ABCe announced that the Unique User metric is to replace Page Impressions as the mandatory minimum to be certified. The objective is to make online data more comparable to its print counterpart.
The print versus online debate was heightened through the year with the performance of national newspapers in particular coming under scrutiny.
All of those sites audited by ABCe reported growth in their reach across the year. These ranged from those in the popular and mid market sector like the The Sun and Daily Mail, to those with a more established online presence such as the Guardian.
The print market on the other hand was seen to experience a decline in circulation during 2006.
The debate concerning the amount of time people spend online at the expense of traditional media consumption continued to rage throughout the year.
Watching videos online and from mobile devices was cited as one of the reasons for less people watching TV in a traditional way.
The football World Cup presented the BBC with an opportunity to stream live games via the web and further shift audiences away from TV and radio (see BBC To Show World Cup Games Live On Broadband).
The corporation also reported record numbers of people listening to its radio shows via the internet, reflecting the growing popularity of downloads and podcasting (see BBC Radio Listening Via The Internet Reaches Record Levels).
In addition, Channel 4 launched an on-demand player which sees its television programmes on the internet for 30 days after they are broadcast, thanks to an agreement reached with Pact on new media rights.
After months of negotiations, the broadcaster won its battle for a 30-day exclusive window in which to make the most of its programmes via all platforms (see C4 Wins Battle To Screen Shows Online).
Meanwhile, the method for measuring online adspend looked to become more accurate, as Nielsen Media Research and Nielsen//NetRatings got together to expand their coverage to almost 600 websites (see Online Adspend Measurement Set To Improve).
The buzzwords of the year were social networking and video sharing. MySpace and You Tube arguably became the most talked about properties, with web users clamouring to post videos and socialise online.
The giant of the sector, Google, moved in by purchasing YouTube (see Google Buys YouTube) for $1.65 billion (£884 million) in a stock transaction.
The “free” broadband war also stepped up a notch in 2006, with the launch of BT Total Broadband, a comprehensive package including services such as the planned television service, BT Vision (see BT Joins “Free” Broadband Battle)
Sky also launched a free broadband service, saying that it would invest around £400 million in the development of the business over the next three years (see Sky Launches Free Broadband Service).