• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, March 11, 2005

The growth of broadband, combined with the emergence of music download sites, spurred consumers to spend $413.5 million on online entertainment and lifestyle content last year--nearly double the $217.6 million spent in 2003, according to an Online Publishers Association report released Thursday. That increase marks a huge shift from the year before, when consumer spending on online entertainment fell 6 percent from 2002.

OPA President Michael Zimbalist said the uptick in spending was indicative of the trend of consumers increasingly turning to the Internet for entertainment--and especially for MP3s. "It reflects the success of legitimate paid music services over the past year," Zimbalist said.

Overall, spending on online content reached $1.8 billion last year--a 14 percent increase from 2003.

Other Web sites showing gains included sports-related sites--such as ESPN.com and SportingNews.com--and gaming sites--including niche sites such as Pogo.com and the games section of portals such as Yahoo! and MSN. Spending on sports grew by 38 percent, to $52.8 million, while spending on games rose 21.8 percent, to $88.8 million.

The category posting the largest decline was credit help, including sites that offer consumers assistance with obtaining their credit records. Consumers spent $27.1 million on such sites last year, down 26 percent from 2003. Spending on community-made directories, where consumers generate much of the content--such as IMDB.com and Classmates.com--fell to $70.5 million, down 19 percent from last year. And consumers spent less on business and investment news sites, such as WSJ.com, which saw a decline of 6 percent to $312.9 million.

Spending for general news sites, such as NYTimes.com, came to $87.9 million--nearly flat from last year's $87.5 million.