Advertising budgets are expected to decline in the coming year, but television's piece of the total ad pie could shrink almost 5 percent, according to eMarketer.
eMarketer's Television’s New Picture report forecasts that the ad spending on television will decline 4.6 percent in 2009. Television ads currently comprise 25 percent, or $69.8 billion, of the $284.8 billion ad dollars that will be spent in 2008. But eMarketer predicts that number will drop to $66.9 billion next year.
In contrast, online video ad spend as a percent of TV ad spending will only be getting bigger. Currently at .7 percent, eMarketer projects it will jump to 1.7 percent in 2010.
While that will be good news for online video publishers, it also points to a problem with the migration to online video — while viewers may be quickly transitioning, the ad dollars are not so easily moved. While online video may be the happy recipient of more advertising dollars in the coming year, the total ad spend is still shrinking. Online video is still in the early stages of monetization, but no one has yet figured out the magic code to making television ad dollars online.____
