As for the impact of the Net on TV, 37 per cent PC-users worldwide stopped watching prime time, and switched to the Internet as per the 1998 Forrester Study. At the same time, according to a Neilsens Rating Study, one million fewer US households watch TV. Besides, by the year 2004, Internet will overtake the radio in ad-spend.

And by the year 2005, the potential Internet users would be 700 million as compared to the current (1999): 1.95 million, according to a Morgan Stanley Report.

This Netcrunching was done by Sunil Rajshekhar, director, Times Interactive while giving a informative perspective of the Indian and world Internet ad industry at a session titled `Destination Interest: The Online Advertising Industry in India', at the India Internet World being held here.

Giving a wake-up call, Rajshekhar called upon advertisers and clients to relook at the medium afresh. ``The Internet needs to prove its value to earn a spot on the media plan,'' said he. According to him, most of the Indian Websites had drawn up from the West. What they, however, lacked was in investments, the vision and the strategies.

``The situation was similar 25 years ago when television was the new medium--it's a chicken-and-egg syndrome--companies want revenues even before investing money in it,'' he said.

From the ad agencies' perspective, Rajshekhar felt that there was very low awareness of Internet business among them: little research on this medium was being done by them and hence they were refusing to take risks.

On the clients' side, he noted that while most of the companies had a large Web presence, it was more for the sake of appearances. ``Though they claim to include Internet as part of their marketing plan, there are no innovative strategies to drive business on the Net.''

Interestingly, finance and real estate, and not information technology were the leading categories to advertise on the Indian net. Banks and FIs such as ICICI, Union Bank of India and others were the first movers, while Godrej Properties and Rahejas have advertised on the Internet quite successfully.

``IT companies, at present, though recognise the scope of the medium, are awaiting the growth of a local audience,'' said Rajshekhar. ``Only Intel, which has spent the highest on Indian Internet advertising--Rs 1.5 crore--is aware that traffic is growing and will grow,'' he added. In contrast, some of the large IT advertisers in the US include Microsoft which spends $35 million a year, followed by IBM ($28 million) and Compaq ($16 million).

The other category--new media advertisers--worldwide contributes 10 per cent of total revenues. Indian corporates, according to Rajshekhar have not used the medium so effectively while consumer product companies were apprehensive about the brand awareness. That myth, he said, had been broken with a recent study by Millward Brown which claims that brand awareness increases from 12 per cent to 200 per cent through banner ads.

As for the future of Internet advertising in India, Rajshekhar said that since already 10 publishers were capturing 70 per cent of the total ad-revenue on the Internet, it would be the survival of the fittest. According to a Forrester analysis: `Higher speed will bring about new multimedia advertising combining the best of TV and Net. The new age will be of `environmercials rather than commercials.'