• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 8, 2009

Broadcasters are finally showing signs of progress by developing digital revenue for their stations, according to new research from BIA Advisory Services. Based on industry-wide surveys, BIA estimates that radio and televisions stations collectively drove approximately $805 million in online dollars last year -- equal to 7.3% of the $11 billion local online ad money spent.

This breaks down to $342 million for radio, and $463 million for television in 2008, according to BIA subsidiary The Kelsey Group.

If the industry continues its transformation to multiplatform solutions, BIA projects the broadcasting industry's online revenue will climb to as much as $1.9 billion by 2013.

"We see a compounded annual growth rate of 18.6% for online broadcasting advertising over the 2008-2013 period," said Mark Fratrik, vice president at BIA Advisory Services. "Given the challenges facing broadcasting, it's even more important for broadcasters to continue to step up their mobile and Internet offerings."

Based on its performance thus far, local online advertising will grow a mere 6% this year, research and consulting firm Borrell Associates recently predicted.

Last year, as Yellow Pages and newspaper companies filed for bankruptcy and TV and radio station revenues stalled, their online hybrids "zipped right along," according to the annual report analyzing Web revenues for 4,353 local media properties representing more than 6,000 individual Web sites in the U.S. and Canada.

Overall, $12.6 billion was spent in online advertising by local advertisers last year, according to Borrell, which represented a 46% increase year-over-year.

Not surprisingly, sales were dominated by pure-play Web companies with no ties to legacy media, including Google, Local.com, Interactive Corp., Marchex and ReachLocal.