Advertising spending on the internet has overtaken television expenditure in the UK for the first time, according to a report today.
A record £1.75 billion sterling - nearly a quarter of the total ad market - was spent online in the first half of this year, compared with £1.64 billion for TV, the study said.
It is thought that the UK is the world's first major economy to pass the media milestone.
Internet spending grew by 4.6% during the period compared to the previous year and now makes up 23.5% of the market. TV advertising fell by 17%, making up 21.9% of total spend.
The study, carried out by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers, showed overall advertising fell by 16% in the period as firms slashed costs in the recession.
IAB chief executive Guy Phillipson said he thought online advertising still had room for growth.
'We could see absolutely see it grow to being a 30% medium (of ad share spend), to go past £4 billion to even £5 billion annually,' he added.
Online advertising is classified as email campaigns, classified adverts, display ads and search engine websites such as Google.
The IAB data showed that 60% of the online advertising was spent on search engines, with 22% on online classified ads.
However, Thinkbox, the UK TV marketing body, said the figures were not comparing like with like.
'Online marketing spend is made up of many things including email, classified ads, display ads and, overwhelmingly, search marketing. They should be judged individually. It is interesting but meaningless to sweep all the money spent on every aspect of online marketing into one big figure and celebrate it,' it said.
It added that television advertising remained the most effective advertising medium 'pound for pound'.
Press display advertising was the UK's third biggest ad market, with £1.38 billion of spend, or 18.5% of the total.
