You can get the full scoop on this story over at the BBC; Online advertising “overtakes TV” but for now, stick with me whilst I sum this story up and talk about a little bit of my personal experience with this.

Last year, at the back half of the Summer over here in the UK, I was doing the rounds at careers fairs in London and around the UK. I was specifically targetting marketing and advertising. It’s always been an area that interested me from a very early age. Even since the age of 12 years old!

I listened to some slick presentations talking about the state of the industry. They whipped out graphs shwoing the progression and trends of advertising budget spends. In 2007/2008, online advertising expenditure had shot up 41% in one year! That is massive! It was still only taking up 17% of total advertising spend across the industry.

Now though, online advertising has over taken TV spending in the advertising stakes. TV was once second in the advertising budget spend, behind printed media such as magazine and newspapers (which still remains at the top of to ad spend charts). But this recent turn of events and change of fortune for online advertisers has come about from a number of changes and developments in society.

I am 22, and started fiddling about on computers and going online before the age of 12. There will be a lot of people around today who started even younger than me. Young people and older generations have all become more tech-savvy as the comptuer and Internet is introduced in the work places and in the home on a much larger scale. Asa result, more and more people tend to get the content they want to see, as and when they want to see it and this has also caused the proliferation of user-generated content, which again has been encouraged by massive websites such as Youtube.com.

As society has got used to the concept of content and entertainment on-demand, the TV stations have gone as far as they are comfortable with to accommodate this change in preferences through services such as the iplayer (for the BBC). Users are digesting and consuming their content and entertainment in different ways, and this trend has been accelerated further with the easy-access to laptops and 3 G mobile phones such as the famous iphone.

With the above in mind, there is n surprise that online advertising is over-taking TV advertising. After all, any TV content can easily be introduced online in this day and age.

If you are in the marketing and advertising space online, this is an excellent time for you to get involved and really push your products and services out there. I know it is something I will be exploring a lot more in the close future to come.