paidContent’s David Kaplan shares Bernstein Research’s updated Ad Tracker, which, for the first time since it began in 2003, showed a decline (-4%) in online ad spend in Q1. Just in case you suspected a particular weakness with online relative to its more traditional brethren, the 18.4% drop in non-online advertising should put that to rest.

What many are, no doubt, wondering is if this past quarter’s drop indicates the nadir of online advertising fortunes, or if there’s more room to fall. The Ad Tracker doesn’t have data before 2003, so it misses the dot-com bubble pop and its effect on ad revenue during 2000-2002. Although there are several reasons why the online advertising market is generally better positioned today than it was 9 years ago, the graph to the right suggests online advertising will continue to be dependent on overall ad spend, and for the latter to grow, we’re all still waiting for an economic recovery.

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