Traditional media owners around the world have been worried for a long time about the impact of the internet on their bottom line, with some doomsayers predicting the end of newspapers and magazines.
But things might not be as bad as first thought in Hong Kong, with new data showing the city's television stations and newspapers still enjoy a big advantage over their online competitors in terms of advertising dollars.
According to online media monitoring by NetRating's AdRelevance, the city's advertisers spent HK$117 million on internet display advertising in the two months ended May. The monitoring began only in April so no comparative figures are available from 2006.
In a clear sign that traditional media is still king, this accounted for only 1.2 per cent of total advertising spending, before discounts, of HK$ 8.2 billion in the same period.
In the two months surveyed, Hong Kong's top internet portals and websites ran 1,376 advertising campaigns from 599 advertisers with more than 3,000 banner ads at a cost of HK$117 million.
The education sector was the biggest supporter of online advertising.
