Web ads to beat telly by 2010

Online advertising will suck an even greater share of cash from marketers' pockets, says the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) - and will surpass the ad money spent on TV by 2010.

The IAB's chief exec Guy Phillipson said he believes the internet advert market will reach £2bn by the end of this year, beating newspaper ad spend for the first time. Currently, the internet sucks up 10 per cent of total ad spend, compared to print news' 11 per cent.

Phillipson said in a statement: "This has been a very tough market, marked in most media by loss of confidence and declining advertising expenditure. In this environment, it's encouraging to see the internet turning over nearly half a billion pounds a quarter - showing healthy growth from an already high base."

Web ads have outstripped cash spent on radio, magazine and outdoor advertising for some time. And, while money spent on such media has plummeted in recent times, online ad spending has remained perky - contributing £917m to the UK's advert coffers in the first half of this year and growing 40 per cent year on year.

Most web ad spending is on paid-for search, at £513m or more than half the web's ad cash, while around a quarter of it comes from online display ads. Thankfully, pop-up ads are now to advertising what prawn cocktail crisps are to upmarket restaurants. Just 0.7 per cent of all ad spending goes on so-called 'disruptive ads', according to the IAB.

The web's big spenders are the recruitment and finance industries, the organisation said, although petrolheads are catching up fast - the automotive sector is now making up nearly 14 per cent of all web advertising cash.