Online newspaper ad spending up 19 pct in 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, March 28 (Reuters) - Advertising spending on U.S. newspaper Web sites rose 18.8 percent to $3.2 billion in 2007, and accounted for 7.5 percent of all newspaper ad spending, according to preliminary estimates released Friday by the Newspaper Association of America.

The percentage of total newspaper ad spending is a rise from 5.7 percent in 2006.

The rise in online ad spending, while still in double-digit percentage points, is a drop-off from the 31 percent rise the industry experienced in 2006 and 2005.

In the fourth quarter, newspaper Web site ad spending rose 13.6 percent to $847 million, compared with the same period in 2006, the Newspaper Association said.

Newspaper publishers from USA Today publisher Gannett Co Inc (GCI.N) to the New York Times Co (NYT.N) have been trying to grow their Web site ad revenue because of an ever sharpening decline in the print advertising they are able to sell.

That drop in advertising, affected in the past year by a weak housing market and other broad economic trends as well as the migration of readers to the Web, also shows up in the association's data.

Print newspaper advertising in 2007 was $42.2 billion, a 9.4 percent drop from $46.6 billion in 2006. Combined print and online spending fell to $45.4 billion, down nearly 8 percent from $49.3 billion in 2006.

In the fourth quarter of 2007, print ad spending fell to $11.7 billion from $13.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Print and online spending for the fourth quarter of 2007 was $12.6 billion, a drop from $14 billion in the same period last year. (Reporting by Robert MacMillan; editing by Gunna Dickson)