LONDON/WASHINGTON: Advertising expenditure levels in the UK will continue to fall until mid-2010 at the earliest, while the internet will overtake television in terms of ad revenues generated this year, a forecast from Warc and the Advertising Association predicts.

The first two quarters of 2009 yielded year-on-year reductions in adspend of 18.8% and 19.0% respectively in the UK at constant prices, with totals set to slide by 13.5% in Q3, and 9.7% in Q4.

Similarly, the opening six months of next year will witness media budgets decrease by a further 3.5%, with the market returning to growth in the period from July to September 2010.

Overall, UK adspend will diminish by 15.3% this year, from £14.13 billion in 2008 to £11.97bn in 2009, and by a further 1.1%, to £11.83bn, in 2010.

Television will post a decline of 16.2% this year, and follow this up with a significantly smaller contraction, of 1.3%, over the following 12 months, to a total of £2.71bn.

National newspapers will also be down by 17.4% this year and 3.3% next, to £1.28bn, with consumer magazines' ad sales plummeting 18.3% in 2009, and slipping 1.4% in 2010, to £509 million.

Radio will post successive decreases of 16.1% and 0.8%, while outdoor will see revenues tumble 17.2% in 2009, but increase by 1.4% in 2010.

The internet, including paid-for search, will enjoy a modest improvement of 0.7% this year, and expand by 4.7% at the end of the decade, to a value of £3.03 billion, seeing the medium overtake television.

By sector, financial services will make the largest cut backs in 2009, at 23.8%, with consumables down 11.9%, durables by 17.4%, and retail by 3%.

Data sourced from WARC