Private-equity group Veronis Suhler Stevenson just issued an interesting report detailing the relative positions of traditional media companies and their online competitors. And believe it or not, VSS
finds that traditional media companies are holding their own in the digital space. Of the $22 billion expected to be spent on online and mobile advertising in the U.S., VSS says traditional media
companies' share is forecast to be 37 percent--up from 23 percent in 2000. By 2010, when Internet and mobile spending is expected to reach $44 billion, VSS expects that traditional media companies'
share will remain high at $17 billion, or 39 percent of the total. "There has been a lot of hand-wringing about media companies not making any money in the online world, but what the data show is that
their position is better than we would have assumed," says James Rutherfurd, managing director at VSS. "Traditional media firms have worked hard at finding ways to extend their reach online, and this
is paying off." Big media companies like Time Warner, News Corp., GE's NBC Universal, CBS, Viacom, Walt Disney, The New York Times Company and Dow Jones are all aggressively going after online ad
dollars. Thanks to widespread high-speed Internet access, ramping up online revenue has become a top priority for most media firms. Some of these big companies will continue to acquire new assets to
help them boost their Web activities. News Corp.'s purchase of MySpace last year is the most recognizable example.
Read the whole story at Financial Times »
