Ad spending forecast to shift more to direct marketing

Consumers will foot more of the bill for the media they want over the next five years as advertisers shift their spending from traditional media to direct marketing, according to the latest edition of private-equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson's Communications Industry Forecast. The annual report, a fixture on the desks of many media executives, should cheer video game and cable and satellite TV companies and Internet service providers (ISPs). But it could complicate efforts by ad-dependent broadcast TV and radio stations, consumer magazines, and especially newspaper companies to characterize their current struggles as a temporary blip in an anemic economy. "You could call (2008) a tipping point," with consumers poised for the first time to spend more on media than advertisers will, says James Rutherfurd, VSS managing director. Spending by consumers and advertisers accounts for about half of the $876.3 billion that went last year to media and communications (not including phone connections). That total, which includes spending by marketers and institutions on business-to-business media, will rise to $1.18 trillion in 2012.