Online media & advertising: growing exponentially

8:57 AM Fri 24 Oct 2008 GMT

'Recent analysis of local consumption of media and other leisure activities clearly shows the Internet becoming the fastest growing media segment.' .

When online media launched in earnest more than a decade ago, it took many cues from traditional media, according to Tessa Wegart, advertising consultant with The ClickZ Network. These days, it's leaping ahead of its hard copy competition and being embraced by young and old.

'As this medium matured and evolved, so did advertising opportunities and editorial formats. And certainly, as consumption increased, so has the gap between 'traditional' media and online publications, both in terms of subscribers/readers and measurable effectiveness,' says Wegart.

This is not my opinion as an online journalist. It's fact and it's a phenomenon that even the 77 year-old Rupert Murdoch, owner of has accepted and embraced.

Why do you think News Corp has invested billions in online portals like www.news.com.aulocally and most recently, mobile technology in its global markets.

Immediacy and interactivity are online media's most coveted characteristics and advantages that no offline media can replicate (that is until digital TV and radio become fathomable and adopted by the mainstream, already at home with the Internet in all its diversity!)

According to ACNielsen in a recent report on the Internet and media consumption, 'from preschoolers to seniors, the Internet has become a way of life'.

In the US, 'over 185 million people have Internet access and that number is growing rapidly. Grabbing an ever-expanding piece of the media consumption pie, the Internet now ranks #3 - a growth rate of 23% versus year ago with a 13% share-behind radio (31%) and television (48%). Newspapers and magazines lag far behind with 5% and 3% shares, respectively.

'Perhaps more importantly, the Internet today reaches the most valuable consumer of all - the highly educated big spenders with kids.'

'Advances in technology have enabled 39 million Internet users to connect with a high-speed transmission-a 49% growth over last year. In addition, rich media (defined as the formats necessary to support, create and deliver online advertisements) is growing in importance. In the first quarter of this year, 28% of ads were served with rich media compared with 17% a year ago.

In the US, online media ranks third after TV and radio. - ..

But back to Rupert.

A few years ago, addressing the newspaper industry in the US, Rupert Murdoch himself sounded the death knell for the era of the media baron, comparing today's Internet media proponents with explorers such as Christopher Columbus hailing the arrival of a 'second great age of discovery'.

The News Corp media magnate said last year that far from mourning the passing of traditional media, he was enchanted with a digital future.

'A new generation of media consumers has risen demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it,' he said. And Murdoch was quick to say he was looking forward, not back.

'Never has the flow of information and ideas, of hard news and reasoned comment, been more important. The force of our democratic beliefs is a key weapon in the war against religious fanaticism and the terrorism it breeds.'

Meaning, people won't wait a month, a week for their news, opinions, features, facts and ability to interact with all of these.

Murdoch, who recently held a summit with his newspaper bosses about forging a new Internet strategy, said the industry had 'sat by and watched' as circulations had fallen over the past 40 years, complacent because of its historic monopoly on the news business.

Refusing to reminisce over a career that saw him develop a global empire stretching from DirecTV and the New York Post in the US to Sky and the Sun in the UK via assets in South America, Asia and Australia, Murdoch declared: 'I believe we are at the dawn of a golden age of information - an empire of new knowledge'. He said he predicts a future in which 'media becomes like fast food' and consumers watching news, sport and film clips as they travel, on mobile phones, laptops or handheld wireless devices.

He said consumers between the ages of 18-34 were increasingly using the web as their medium of choice for news and neglected more traditional media.
Young people's attitudes towards newspapers and magazines were 'especially alarming'.

'Only 9% describe us as trustworthy, a scant 8% find us useful, and only 4% of respondents think we're entertaining.'

He described the shift in attitudes as 'a revolution in the way people are accessing news'.

'They don't want to rely on the morning paper for their up-to-date information. They don't want to rely on a God-like figure from above to tell them what's important. And to carry the religion analogy a bit further, they certainly don't want news presented as gospel.'

They, us, we all want choice, not editorial in the form of the publisher's or editor's stance whittled down and copy-fit to masquerade as news.

Murdoch's final message to traditional media: 'Change or die'.

'Great journalism will always attract readers. The words, pictures and graphics that are the stuff of journalism have to be brilliantly packaged; they must feed the mind and move the heart.'

More facts about online publications at www.netratings.com/intl.jsp?country=auand www.nielsen-online.com

by Jeni Bone