Online advertising overtakes TV spend in the UK

The Guardian reports that television advertising has been the UK's leading advertising medium for almost 50 years - but with people in the UK now spending more time online than watching TV, it has taken the internet market less than a decade to overtake television as the leading advertising sector.

Internet advertising now accounts for 23.5 per cent of all UK advertising spend, compared to 21.9 per cent for TV commercials.

According to a report conducted by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers, UK advertisers spent £1.75 billion on online advertising in the first half of 2009, representing a 4.6 per cent increase year-on-year - this is compared to £1.6 billion being spent on TV advertising. When the IAB first recorded online advertising spend in 1998, the figure was just £19.4 million.

To provide a break-down of online advertising spend, 60 per cent (or £1.05 billion) was spent advertising on search engines such as Google, resulting in a 6.8 per cent increase year-on-year. 22 per cent of online ad spending was on classified ads, accounting for £385 million - a 10.6 per cent increase from 2008.

However, the IAB report also revealed that online display advertising experienced a drop of 5.2 per cent year-on-year and now accounts for £316.5 million, or an 18 per cent share of total online advertising spend.

One of many rapidly expanding areas contributing to the surge in growth is the online video advertising sector, which is estimated to have grown by around 300 per cent year-on-year to almost £12 million. Meanwhile, the decline in TV advertising is being blamed on the recession, which has seen advertising drop 17 per cent year-on-year for the first six months of 2009.

The UK TV marketing body Thinkbox has contested the IAB's findings, arguing that it is inaccurate to treat the rapidly expanding and multi-faceted internet as if it were a single medium. Thinkbox marketing director Lindsey Clay stated: "It is interesting but meaningless to sweep all the money spent on every aspect of online marketing into one big figure and celebrate it.

"Online marketing spend is made up of many things, including email, classified ads, display ads (including online TV advertising) and, overwhelmingly, search marketing. They should be judged individually."

Online advertising overtook TV marketing spend in Denmark earlier this year, but the UK is being lauded as the first major economy to pass this advertising milestone.

Published by: D. Warburton

Published 30th September, 2009

Add comment