Online advertising jumped sharply, but the overall state of ad spending is flat, according to yearend 2006 figures reported by TNS Media Intelligence, ClickZ writes.
Online ad spending grew 17.3 percent in 2006, to $9.8 billion, or 6.5 percent of all ad budgets. The growth, according to a TNS executive, would have been higher, but the inventory simply wasn't there for major advertisers to take advantage of.

But the story was not so good for the rest of the industry, which grew at a paltry 4.3 percent; that would have been even slower had it not been a year with both the Olympics and a national political campaign. Growth for TV outlets was just 2.5 percent, largely propped up by those special bi-yearly events. TV budgets still remain over twice that devoted to the internet.

Newspaper revenue dropped 3.3 percent for local papers but grew 3.3 percent for national publications. Overall, the industry grew just 2.4 percent. And while newspaper income from online advertising is growing, it is not yet making up for the money being pulled from print ads. For every $1 lost by print, only about $0.50 is being made up by online revenue.

TNS numbers for online spending include only display advertising - not blog advertising, search ads or email marketing efforts.