More ad money will be on Web this year than in printed newspapers, digital-marketing firm says

eMarketer, a digital marketing research firm, estimates U.S. advertisers will spend more on Internet ads this year than on print newspaper ads -- $25.8 billion to $22.8 billion, respectively. The data appear to exclude figures for weekly papers, many of which are rural.

"The eclipse has been on the horizon for years as consumers have migrated en masse to the Internet, where there are many more options for news, and where newspaper publishers can't charge nearly as much for ads as they can in print. So even while the total audience for many newspapers has grown, they have been unable to stem revenue declines," reports Russell Adams of The Wall Street Journal. (WSJ chart)

Meanwhile, Forrester Research reports that "U.S. consumers, on average, now spend as much time online as they do watching television," Adams writes. "But they aren't spending less time in front of their TVs. What they are doing less of is listening to the radio and reading newspapers and magazines offline, Forrester says." (Read more; subscription may be required)

The trend is expected to continue: "While total ad spending in the U.S. is expected to bounce back for the full year, growing 3 percent in 2010 to $168.5 billion, newspaper spending is expected to continue its decline next year. eMarketer estimates that print newspaper ad spending will slide to $21.4 billion in 2011, down 6 percent from 2010. On the other hand, online ad spending is expected to grow 10.5 percent in 2011 to reach $28.5 billion." The estimates and forecasts are based partly on data from the Newspaper Association of America, which typically does not gather data on weekly papers. (Read more) The National Newspaper Association, comprising mainly weeklies, says community newspapers are doing better than most publications. Here's a column about it, from Ken Blum.