Forecast: Web will
halt global ad slide

Tougher years are ahead with the looming recession

By Heidi Dawley
Mar 4, 2008

With the real estate mess upon us, amid all sorts of other economic woes, the world's media economy would seem especially at risk. Yet so far it's looking like it will fare decently during the recession that's looming.

In part that's because this is an election and Olympics year in the U.S., which always gives a powerful boost to the global media economy.

But another big factor that should keep the global ad economy from sinking is the internet, which is expected to continue its robust growth over the coming several years as broadband penetration increases and users spend more and more time online.

“If it were not for the organic growth of online advertising, we would be contemplating a recession of advertising spending,” says Vincent Letang, a senior analyst at Screen Digest in London, who has just released a forecast for global ad spending.

Letang expects it to grow below average GDP growth from 2008 to 2012, hitting an annual growth rate of 3.6 percent in Europe and 3.7 percent in the U.S. In the first two years of the forecast, 2008 and 2009, growth will be slower than the remaining years – 2009 will be particularly slow.

Most of this growth, he says will be from online advertising, which he expects to grow about 17 percent a year until 2012.

While this pace falls below recent years--it's ranged between 20 and 50 percent a year, depending on the country--it's still strong enough to roughly double the internet’s share of the total ad spending in the U.S. and Europe.

Television’s share, including traditional broadcast and digital multi-channel, will nearly hold its own, while the lot of radio, print, out of home and cinema will lose out.

Letang’s figures for the U.S. show the internet growing from an 11 percent share of ad spending today to 21 percent in 2012, while TV will fall from 43 percent to 41 percent over the period. He forecasts the remaining media will fall from a share of 46 percent to 39 percent.

For Europe, the online share will rise from 10 percent today to 19 percent in 2012. TV will fall from 33 percent to 32 percent and other media from 57 percent to 49 percent.

Screen Digest’s forecast for internet’s share of the global advertising economy is in line with another recent forecast. The Kelsey Group released numbers predicting that global advertising will grow from $605 billion in 2007 to $707 billion in 2012, for an average annual growth of 2.7 percent.

But it figures internet advertising in its various forms will grow 23.4 percent a year on average, reaching $147 billion in 2012, giving it a 21 percent share of the global ad market by 2012. That's up from 7.4 percent at the end of 2007.

Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended Feb. 24, according to Nielsen Online, Google claimed the top spot among parent companies, followed by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, Microsoft and AOL Media Network.

NexTag was the No. 1 advertiser with 8 million impressions, followed by No. 2 Experian Group Limited at 6.1 million. With 29.5 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MSN at 2.2 million.

Sessions per person per week were even to the previous week at 17, and domains visited per person were up one to 41. PC time per person was down 1 percent compared with the previous week, at 18 hours and 15 minutes.

Top 25 parent companies Through Feb. 24
#	Parent	Unique Audience (000)	Reach %	Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1	Google	88,476	63.5	0:50:07
2	Microsoft	86,663	62.2	0:45:11
3	Yahoo!	77,136	55.3	1:07:50
4	Time Warner	70,221	50.4	1:23:31
5	News Corp. Online	43,520	31.2	0:48:38
6	eBay	35,399	25.4	0:52:30
7	InterActiveCorp	29,733	21.3	0:12:25
8	Amazon	27,390	19.6	0:12:11
9	Wikimedia Foundation	23,849	17.1	0:11:45
10	Walt Disney Internet Group	23,316	16.7	0:23:48
11	Apple Computer	23,108	16.6	0:35:13
12	Landmark Communications	22,718	16.3	0:09:58
13	New York Times Company	22,439	16.1	0:09:13
14	AT&T Inc.	17,433	12.5	0:22:50
15	RealNetworks, Inc.	15,792	11.3	0:20:14
16	E.W. Scripps Company	15,259	10.9	0:06:46
17	Viacom Digital	13,501	9.7	0:30:32
18	Verizon Communications	13,197	9.5	0:18:05
19	Comcast Corp.	13,103	9.4	0:27:26
20	Bank of America	12,279	8.8	0:25:51
21	CNET Networks	12,260	8.8	0:05:25
22	General Electric	11,480	8.2	0:08:50
23	CBS Corporation	11,341	8.1	0:13:59
24	Facebook	11,304	8.1	0:32:12
25	United Online	11,254	8.1	0:29:54
Source: Nielsen Online

Top 25 brands Through Feb. 24
	Parent	Unique Audience (000)	Reach %	Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
1	Google	81,617	58.5	0:43:30
2	Yahoo!	76,364	54.8	1:08:01
3	MSN/Windows Live	63,181	45.3	0:45:48
4	Microsoft	56,709	40.7	0:17:39
5	AOL Media Network	54,327	39.0	1:35:54
6	Fox Interactive Media	37,493	26.9	0:52:44
7	YouTube	34,151	24.5	0:21:57
8	eBay	29,797	21.4	0:55:37
9	Wikipedia	23,727	17.0	0:11:43
10	Apple	23,108	16.6	0:35:13
11	Amazon	22,191	15.9	0:10:59
12	Weather Channel	20,625	14.8	0:10:09
13	Ask Search Network	17,152	12.3	0:12:33
14	CNN Digital Network	17,128	12.3	0:19:50
15	Blogger	16,285	11.7	0:05:32
16	Real Network	15,792	11.3	0:20:14
17	About.com	14,300	10.3	0:03:02
18	AT&T	12,453	8.9	0:28:06
19	Bank of America	11,862	8.5	0:26:19
20	Facebook	11,304	8.1	0:32:12
21	Disney Online	10,853	7.8	0:25:42
22	Craigslist	10,470	7.5	0:46:30
23	Comcast	9,850	7.1	0:34:30
24	Chase	9,290	6.7	0:14:35
25	Verizon	9,036	6.5	0:16:45
Source: Nielsen Online

Top 25 advertisers (excludes house ads) Through Feb. 24
#	Company	Impressions (000)
1	NexTag, Inc.	8,045,162
2	Experian Group Limited	6,119,198
3	Vonage Holdings Corp	2,837,458
4	Netflix, Inc.	2,049,601
5	Bank of America Corporation	1,222,889
6	Apollo Group, Inc.	1,134,773
7	InterActiveCorp	1,117,308
8	CoolSavings, Inc.	996,940
9	General Motors Corporation	947,054
10	HSBC Holdings plc	888,099
11	Echostar Communications Corporation	855,793
12	Verizon Communications, Inc.	799,929
13	GiftFreebies.com	563,461
14	Privacy Matters	497,557
15	Deutsche Telekom AG	491,504
16	Scottrade, Inc.	488,111
17	AT&T Corp.	465,251
18	Novartis AG	457,705
19	Wachovia Corporation	432,254
20	Low.com	393,334
21	eBay, Inc.	377,356
22	TaxACT	342,389
23	United Online, Inc.	337,609
24	Citigroup Inc.	328,480
25	Toyota Motor Corporation	307,198
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.

Top 25 advertising sites (excludes house ads) Through Feb. 24
	Company	Impressions (000)
1	Yahoo!	29,521,221
2	MSN	2,227,388
3	MySpace	1,433,275
4	AOL.com	1,074,316
5	MSNBC	976,750
6	eBay	733,153
7	Comcast.net	626,297
8	The Weather Channel	584,368
9	Facebook	570,394
10	NeoPets	567,483
11	New York Times	529,083
12	IMDb	471,899
13	FOXNEWS.COM	432,564
14	Photobucket	400,339
15	CNN	359,165
16	Amazon	328,663
17	NetZero	303,295
18	MyPoints	301,549
19	Juno	251,604
20	Excite	191,852
21	EarthLink	183,075
22	ESPN.com	172,635
23	Verizon Online	168,669
24	CNN Money	166,459
25	Drudge Report	159,147
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.

Average use Through Feb. 24
	Current Week	Last Week	% Change
Sessions/Visits per Person	17	17	0
Domains Visited per Person	41	40	2.5
PC Time per Person	18:15:06	18:25:59	-0.98
Active Digital Media Universe	139,435,368	140,711,537	-0.91
Current Digital Media Universe Estimate	220,709,448	220,656,084	0.02
Source: Nielsen Online