Ad rates grow 30%, inventory grows 1,000% -- collision course?

Advertising revenue may not be the panacea for the lost of financial support for journalism, participants at a networked-journalism summit were told. Of about 1,500 bloggers who are part of the BlogAds network  “I wouldn’t say hundreds, but I would say more than dozens,” are making a living, said Henry Copeland, the network’s president, adding later: “Advertising revenue on the net is growing at 30% a year. The problem is that inventory is growing at 1,000 percent a year.” 

As a result, Copeland said, there are more sales reps trying to place more ads on more sites and cmpetition is intense. Copeland said publisher expectations of higher web advertising revenues and rates are on a “collision course” with greater competition. Copeland spoke at the Networked Journalism Summit in New York on Oct. 10, 2006. The event, organized by the new journalism program at the City University of New York, took places in the TimesCenter auditorium of the new New York Times building.

"Advertising may now go down, because advertisers are going to have direct relationships with consumers," said Jeff Jarvis, a professor at CUNY and a conference organizer.