According to statistics, Internet advertising continues to prop up the media markets across the pond. The IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) indicates that ad revenues have surged £1.69 billion, or $2.95 billion, which is an overall increase of 21 percent in the first six months of 2008.

Meanwhile, traditional media sales have continued to fall off as an overall percentage though print is still represents a slight advantage—one percent sliver—of the advertising pie. Television advertising revenues, at 21.7 percent, still represents the biggest single advertising market, but now that lead has been cut down to just under three percent.

Ads in the UK in the paid-for-by-search category are still dominated by Google and rose dramatically to 29 percent over last year to an impressive £981 million or $1.72 billion.

Online Advertising revenues, according to the IAB, amounted to $21.2 billion in the US, or 26 percent increase in 2007. The majority, 55 percent, was directed at consumer-related advertising.

Obviously these numbers are pre-Wall Street meltdown so it will be interesting to see how the numbers stack up as we slide deeper and deeper into a global recession. However, with more accurate click-to-sale tracking capabilities it seems that online advertising in all its permutations will certainly challenge TV advertising dollars for top spot in the not too distant future.

One thing is virtually guaranteed, there'll certainly be a lot more classified job ads posted for investment bankers and brokers looking for new positions, even careers, in the coming weeks.