Newspaper-owned Web sites are taking the biggest slice of an online local ad pie that is rapidly getting bigger, says a new study by Borrell Associates. In 2007, newspaper online local ads for
the first time topped more than $2 billion.
Overall, newspaper sites captured about 25% of the local online ad spend -- and in some markets, they got half the pie. It's a lot, say
researchers, but not as much as a few years, when newspapers overall attracted 44% of the total spend.
Other media are not close. Broadcast TV got a 6.9% share of the overall ad spend in 2007, and local radio clusters garnered only 1% share overall, according to the study.