From The Wall Street Journal 12-20 Full Story here

By RUSSELL ADAMS

This year, for the first time, advertisers will have spent more on Internet ads than on print newspaper ads, according to new estimates from eMarketer.

The digital-marketing research firm says U.S. spending on online ads will hit $25.8 billion, surpassing the $22.8 billion spent on print ads in newspapers.

The eclipse has been on the horizon for years as consumers have migrated en masse to the Internet, where there are many more options for news, and where newspaper publishers can't charge nearly as much for ads as they can in print. So even while the total audience for many newspapers has grown, they have been unable to stem revenue declines.

"It's something we've seen coming for a long time, but this is a tipping point," says Geoff Ramsey, the chief executive of eMarketer.

It isn't just that newspapers are facing fiercer competition from the Web. Recently released findings by Forrester Research show that U.S. consumers, on average, now spend as much time online as they do watching television. But they aren't spending less time in front of their TVs. What they are doing less of is listening to the radio and reading newspapers and magazines offline, Forrester says.

While total ad spending in the U.S. is expected to rise 3% this year to $168.5 billion, eMarketer estimates spending on print ads in newspapers will decline 8.2% in 2010, to be followed by a 6% decline in 2011.

Ad Age on "Why Forbes, Fortune Really Hope BusinessWeek Fetches More Than TV Guide Did:"

For all the challenges in the credit market, not to mention the tens of millions of dollars BusinessWeek is said to be losing, its competitors had better hope it can fetch a lot more than a lone greenback. Both Forbes and Fortune are profitable, but a token dollar transaction for their competitor would represent a vote of very little confidence in the future of their category.

That's because, despite specific circumstances that helped BusinessWeek slide into the red, they're all facing pretty much the same questions: If ad-page sales don't regain their old momentum, how well can they make digital compensate? Can they continue to meet the needs, and capture the dollars, of their particular advertisers, who are changing pretty rapidly themselves? What will be their story after the recession ends?

"Offline those brands have an opportunity to be around for some time, but I think they'll be smaller and smaller offline, while online they can be bigger and bigger," said Forbes.com CEO Jim Spanfeller last Thursday, following the news last week that he was leaving after nine years.

"Any business title that is not drawing most of its revenue from digital within, say, three years will most likely not be in business," he added later. "Even with a recovery, I simply do not see huge ad revenues coming back to print."