As the mortgage crisis clouds the financial outlook, a report from TNS Market Intelligence says “advertising expenditures in the first half of 2007 slipped by 0.3 percent to $72.59 billion versus the same period in 2006.” In a press release chief executive Steven Fredericks said:

“For the first time since 2001, media advertising expenditures have declined for two consecutive quarters . . . the overall results reflect weakness across a wide range of industries and advertisers. Given the uncertainties about near-term economic growth and consumer spending, we expect core ad spending will continue to face challenges during the second half of the year.”

David Kaplan, writing for Paid Content, notes that the overall share of the advertising dollar going to online media continues to grow in the first half of 2007 :

“the internet’s ad spend take was 7.6 percent of total ad spending, while the same period last year was 6.4 percent, and 5.6 percent for H105. “

But Kaplan notes that TNS report “does appear to add to the evidence (here and here) that the past few years’ surge of online ad spending is slowing. “