Internet still reigns as the cheapest ad dollar spend

It’s the big one – the one that moves industries, creates new ones and destroys old ones.
Just how much time are people spending on the internet versus other forms of media? You see when the news finally hits that people are switching off TV, newspapers and magazines and switching on to the internet full time, then the media spend should follow.

Here’s the relevant chart from the World Internet Project – NZ Report:

It has all the information, but does not show it in an easily analysable form.

Luckily the draft report has some tables (no breakdown by demos though), so I am saved from measuring bar length and estimating. Indeed the tables even come with handy means and standard errors.

I simply added up the median hours spent by internet type (home, work etc.), and am comparing them to the other media using median hours again.

Here then is what the media share charts look like for 2007.

or by percentage of media time, for these media only. It’s the same chart, different numbers:

Now – let’s look at media spend by the same categories (excluding billboards, magazines etc.). This is from the Calendar year 2007 ASA stats.

Now we combine them. Here is the amount of money spend by NZ advertisers in millions per year per weekly hour spent on that media by Kiwis. Let’s say that again. Dollars spent per hour consumed. A big number means the market is saturated with expensive advertising, a small number means it is a cheap media for getting to consumers.

Overall – internet is 27 times less monetised per hour than Newspapers, 5.5 times than TV and 2.3 times than radio.

Clearly Internet is the advertisers’ bargain, followed by radio, and they are both going up while the others are suffering a bit. Internet is especially strong for getting to the young an the wealthy, who are the prime targets for many advertisers.

Newspapers take a huge amount in comparison – which clearly is not unsustainable versus TV and radio (it’s been a lot of years) but given the Internet is perceived as an information media, like newspapers, then it should be and is sending shivers up a lot of old media spines.