The Internet is on track to surpass magazines to become the globe’s third largest advertising medium by 2010, according to Steve King, chief executive of ZenithOptimedia.

King predicts that Internet advertising will be worth $36 billion this year, $5 billion more than projected in December 2006. Worldwide Internet advertising will increase by 24 percent in 2008 and 69 percent over the next three years, hitting $61 billion in 2010.

A spokesman for Zenith said: "We predict global internet advertising to pass three milestones in the next three years: to overtake radio advertising in 2008; to attain a double-digit share of global advertising in 2009; and to overtake magazine advertising in 2010, with 11.5 per cent of total ad spend."

Television will remain the leader in the global advertising market in 2010, with estimated revenues of $198.89 billion in revenues followed by newspapers. Zenith projects that in 2010 the Internet will account for $60.88 billion of total advertising spend and magazines will comprise $60.58 billion of spending.

Zenith estimates that by 2010 the Internet will comprise more than 20 percent in the same four markets, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden and more than 15 percent of advertising spend in ten other countries.

King projects that global advertising spending will grow by 6.7 percent in 2008, an increase from 5.3 percent this year. The U.S. presidential election and the Olympic Games in Beijing will add to the growth.