UK online advertising spend rose by 4.2% in 2009

"The Internet Advertising Bureau's annual report, compiled with PricewaterhouseCoopers and published today, revealed that UK online display advertising rose by about 11% year on year to £709m last year.
Overall the IAB's report showed that total UK internet advertising spend – including classified and search – rose by 4.2% year on year in 2009 to £3.5bn. As forecast, this comfortably outstripped the recession-battered TV advertising sector, which was down by about 10% to £2.89bn, according to the media buying operation Group M.
However, the IAB has said that on a like-for-like basis – meaning that when the income is stripped out for online companies that have not submitted figures in both 2008 and 2009 because it skews comparisons – the online display market shrank by 4.4%.
Based on the IAB's own figures from 2008, when it valued the online display ad market at £637m, the 4.4% drop should mean that in 2009 the sector was worth some £609m."
Source: Data compiled by the IAB / PwC, reported by The Guardian, 31st March 2010