Internet Is Set to Overtake Newspapers in Ad Revenue
The Internet is poised to overtake newspapers as the second-largest U.S. advertising medium by revenue behind television, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010 to 2014.
The online ad business, excluding mobile ads, is set to expand to $34.4 billion in 2014 from $24.2 billion in 2009, according to the report, which PwC plans to release Tuesday.
Newspapers, meanwhile, continue to suffer from a decline in advertising revenue. According to numbers released by the Newspaper Association of America earlier this year, print advertising revenue dropped 28.6 percent in 2009 to $24.82 billion. The PwC report estimates that print advertising in newspapers will hit $22.3 billion by 2014.
“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 PwC report notes.
Shifts in consumer behavior, potential for inventory on the Internet, and increased broadband penetration in the U.S. are key factors in PwC’s projections, according to David Silverman, a partner at PwC.
