A Los Angeles Times piece (via Chicago Tribune), takes a critical look at the state of advertising and posits that after having siphoned off ad dollars for years from print publications, the internet is chipping away at the biggest, baddest behemoth of all media: TV. And the Times lists examples: Commercials for Land Rover, the Army and Staples run before music videos and TV clips on Yahoo. General Motors cut commercial orders on some broadcast networks but agreed to pay $4 million to sponsor an America Online music service. MSN.com recently landed blue-chip advertisers such as American Express, Volvo and Sprite.

"Our business is probably coming more from television, especially broadcast television, than from any other medium," said Wenda Harris Millard, chief sales officer for Yahoo, which sold $3 billion in online ads last year. "Brand marketers have finally recognized they cannot ignore the shift in media consumption patterns."

Online advertising has become another harbinger of TV doom, threatening to shrink the $60-billion-a-year market for broadcast network, cable and local TV ads. Online ad revenue surged 33% to $9.6 billion in the United States last year and is expected to grow as much this year, writes the Times.