Terry Heaton has a sneak peek of an upcoming Borrell Associates report on local online ad spending. “The days of easy online money for traditional local media are over,” reads the report. “After a decade of upselling their print and broadcast advertisers, many sites began experiencing significantly slower growth in online advertising in 2006 and early 2007.” Borrell illustrates the tremendous growth among the pure plays in local advertising (up 22 share points in two years alone). Newspapers lost 8 share points (Borrell calls this “huge”), and TV sites gained 5 points for a total of a 7.1 percent share of local online ad dollars. The report goes on to say that local media companies are realizing that simply upselling from TV will not sustain growth, and the new model “is beginning to look more like a stand-alone business with separate staffs and network affiliations.” For our faithful readers, all this isn’t a surprise, as I’ve written frequently about the upcoming storm for local media companies on the web. TV sites are still minor players, and pure plays are taking it to the bank. Stay tuned for the Borrell report, due out in a few days.
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