Yesterday news broke that online advertising expenditure had outstripped television spending for the first time in the UK.

Although the money spent on advertising overall for the first half of 2009 fell by 16% in comparison with the same period in 2008 (with television falling by 16.1% to £1.64 billion), online spend grew by 4.6% to £1.75 billion.

The news has caused some considerable waves, both in the online and offline worlds. Although the shift at the top of the pile has long been prophesied, it occurred a year earlier than expected.

However, although the trend does seem to be that as television spending shrinks online increases, we shouldn’t see them as being inversely related. The past eighteen months or so have seen advertisers move away from television due as much to tough economic times as to them recognising new opportunities online.

While these online avenues might seem like they’re replacing television, perhaps in better economic times they would be growing side by side.

That said, online is probably not going to look back and is going to keep on outpacing television. While television spend might increase again in the coming years, it’s safe to say that online will grow faster.

While television is made up of a few big investors, online has a whole bunch of smaller players involved. It’s fair to say that the level at which firms (both large and small) are investing is going to increase significantly, while television looks set to remain the playground of the big boys for quite a while yet.

However, we are comparing apples with watermelons when looking at these stats – a more realistic comparison would be between online and all of the various offline components (television, print, radio etc.), as currently we’re sizing up a category against a tactic.

That’s not to say that the growth of online has been anything to sneer at but rather that we should expect quite a bit more yet.

 Also check out:

• Friday Fact Box - Online Advertising Spend
• What Media Spend?
• Internet TV