The internet is poised to overtake newspapers as the second-largest US advertising medium by revenue behind television, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010 to 2014.
It predicts that the online ad business, excluding mobile ads, will expand to $34.4bn (£23.3m) in 2014 from $24.2bn (£16.5m) in 2009.
American newspapers 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% in 2009 to $24.82bn (£16.9bn), and the PwC report estimates it will drop to $22.3bn (£15.2bn) 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.
Increased broadband penetration in the US has been a key factor, moving up from 34% of households in 2005 to an estimated 64% of households now.
Source: WSJ blogs
