The market share of traditional media advertising -- TV, newspaper and radio -- is experiencing a downward trend in 2005, the first all-round decline since China's reform in the late 1970s.

The decline is mainly due to the rise of new media like the Internet and the mobile phone short message, Huang Shengmin, head of the Advertising Studies School with Communication University of China (CUC), said. Huang was quoted in a Beijing-based Economic Information Daily report on Thursday.

A specialized annual report released by the CUC Advertising Studies School showed that the advertising market share of TV, newspaper, radio broadcast and magazines were 38.8 percent, 23.1 percent, 3.0 percent and 7.4 percent respectively in 2004, and are predicted to drop to 38.7 percent, 22.1 percent, 2.8 percent and 6.9 percent respectively in 2005.

The traditional media, which traditionally dominates 80 percent of advertising market share, managed only 45 percent in 2004.

"The major shortcoming of the traditional media is their 'one versus many' model without a clear target audience," Huang said. "Impact of ads in these media has weakened along with greater competition and higher media placement prices."

Companies are forced to turn to new media as profits fail to match advertising investments in traditional media, Huang added.

Currently, sales volumes of China's advertising industry are worth about 120 billion yuan (US$14.8 billion), with the lion's share taken by new media including outdoor advertising -- which recorded 12 to 13 billion yuan in sales, and the Internet with 2.9 billion yuan.

Focused advertising targeting niche groups -- for example, community advertising, lift advertising and club advertising -- are also becoming more popular with some advertisers.

(Xinhua News Agency September 23, 2005)