TV Advertising tops Newspapers, but Internet Leads All Media by 2011

Implications: Article summarizes the latest Veronis Suhler Stevenson report which predicts that TV advertising will surpass newspapers in 2008, but in just three years the Internet will be in first place.

Analysis: Newspapers are facing desperate times, and for the first time ever, VSS in their annual Communications Industry Forecast predicts broadcast TV advertising will surpass total newspaper advertising in 2008.  But the bigger story is that the Internet will overtake TV and be the leading advertising medium by 2011.

While we have seen this coming for some time, it still is amazing, considering how the Internet generated NO advertising until the early 1990s.  By 2011, the Internet will be the largest advertising medium in the US estimated at nearly $60 billion.  TV is expected to remain in second place at a respectable $51 billion, while newspapers will be at $43 billion.

Of course, a lot of this online advertising will be someway connected to traditional broadcasting and newspapers in that companies involved in these "old" mediums will also be attracting ad dollars via their respective Internet platforms.  But the world has changed, and it is not going back to old ways of doing business.

If media companies haven't developed an online advertising strategy by now, they better hurry, because they are just about out of time.