BUSINESS BRIEFING / INTERNET
TIMES WIRE SERVICES
Internet advertising in the United States dropped 5% in the first quarter, marking the marketing medium’s first downturn since 2002 when the Web was still recovering from the dot-com bust.
The data released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers provided another reminder of the widespread pain wrought by the recession.
But the Internet’s financial backbone isn’t sagging as badly as that of more established media like newspapers and broadcasters, where far more severe advertising losses have triggered massive layoffs, bankruptcy filings and doubts about whether their businesses will ever be the same again.
