US Online Ad Spending to Top Print in 2012

(MarketWatch) - In the culmination of a shift several years in the making, US online advertising spending will surpass print ad spending for the first time in 2012, according to a forecast issued Thursday by media research firm eMarketer.

Online ad spending rose 23 percent in 2011 to $32 billion, the company said, and should grow another 23 percent to $39.5 billion this year.

Print advertising spending, on newspapers and magazines, is expected to fall to $33.8 billion in 2012 from $36 billion in 2011.

Meanwhile, the most popular mass medium remains television, where eMarketer expects ad spending to increase 6.8 percent to $64.8 billion, "driven [by] the Olympics and elections -- while remaining resilient from worries about the soft economy."

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