Digital Marketplace: Q1 Not a 'Nuclear Winter'

So far, the first months of 2009 aren't looking as dire as once predicted for the online advertising market, according to buyers and sellers. However, many report that business has slowed down, resulting in intensifying pressure on pricing, particularly in the ad networks space.
Depending on whom you talk to, the ad networks are having a rougher time than most. Last week, eMarketer cited a recent report issued by PubMatic (a company that helps facilitate various publishers’ relationships with ad networks) that found ad pricing for small, medium and large sites had plummeted in fourth quarter by 52, 23 and 54 percent year over year, respectively, and that average CPMs for display ads had dropped to just 26 cents. According to PubMatic’s co-founder and general manager Rajeev Goel, the trend has continued. “January has been pretty light,” he said. “What we are hearing from publishers is that they really hope things pick up in February and March.”

One segment of the ad network world that is weathering the economy is online video. Jason Glickman, CEO of the online video network Tremor Media, claims that money continues to flow to his company out of TV. “We actually think Q1 is going to be better than projected,” he said.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/broadband/e3ic96aa80f511fb30f1377fb18ac6594b9