Internet display advertising in U.S. jumped 17.3% to $9.76 bln, as budgets continue to shift to digital media, according to TNS Media Intelligence. While spot TV, helped by record-setting levels of political advertising, was up 10.4%, nearly 21% in Q4 2006 alone, to $17.23 bln. Spanish-language television saw a 13.9% growth to $4.3 bln. Network TV grew just 2.5% while cable rose only 3.4%.

The Olympics and the midterm elections helped boost U.S. ad spending by more than 4% last year and underlying growth trends remain relatively slow in this one, according to a leading industry tracker.

Advertisement spending in the 19 media came in at a hair under $150 billion with the highest percentage growth coming for the Internet, spot TV and Spanish-language television.

The research firm sees no significant changes to industry fundamentals that are apt to move the ad market onto a different track and maintained a recent forecast of 2.6% growth for 2007 that while conservative, still seems appropriate.

By media, Internet display advertising jumped 17.3% to $9.76 billion as budgets continue to shift to digital media. Spot TV, helped by record-setting levels of political advertising, was up 10.4% — nearly 21% in the fourth quarter alone — to $17.23 billion. Spanish-language television saw a 13.9% to $4.3 billion although other areas of the TV marketplace were slapped by a second-half slowdown. Network TV grew just 2.5% while cable — long a star performer — rose only 3.4%.

As a group, newspapers were down 2.4% with a local newspaper spending drop of 3.3% offsetting modest gains in national and Spanish newspapers. Other media showing drops in spending include business-to-business magazines and local radio.

Meanwhile, Procter & Gamble held on to its spot as the No. 1 spender, laying out some $3.4 billion last year. It was followed by General Motors, which hung on to second place at $2.3 billion despite a 23.7% cut in spending. AT&T was right on its heels, increasing 30.8% to $2.2 billion. Verizon came in fourth, at $1.9 billion, an increase of 10.4%, and Tine Warner rounded out the top five at $1.8 billion, down 12%.

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