14/08/2008

For all that newspaper publishers are fearing a squeeze on advertising spend, almost five billion pounds’ worth of advertising was taken out among the UK’s newspapers, last year - say figures just released.

According to broadcasting regulators, Ofcom - in its annual Communications Market Report - newspapers continue to attract more advertising spend than rival media: television, radio and the internet. Last year, says Ofcom, it amounted to £4.7 billion.

And last year saw the largest growth in advertising spending in the media for three years, claims Ofcom, up by 6.3 per cent, to £14.9bn.

The majority of this growth came from internet advertising, which has risen by an average of 70.2 per cent in each of the last five years, to reach £2.8bn.

For the first time, last year saw the internet attract more advertising spend than the combined net advertising revenues of ITV1, Channel 4, S4C and Five (£2.4bn), and as much as all outdoor and magazine advertising spend combined.

In total, television advertising revenue remained more or less flat last year, at £3.5bn. But there was a warning: 23 per cent of homes own a digital video recorder and 88 per cent of them claim they usually fast-forward through commercial breaks when watching recorded programmes.

Meanwhile, expenditure on radio advertising increased last year for the first time in three years, up by £5million (one per cent) in the year, to £442million. However, radio’s share of total advertising revenue continued to fall, from three per cent two years ago to 2.9 per cent, last year.

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