It is no surprise really, for those of us not asleep at the wheel, that newspapers are under major threat.

According to this insightful December 9th 2008 press release by market research firm ZenithOptimedia, ad spend on the Internet is scheduled to rise from 10.3% in 2008 to 15.6% in 2011.

Now, if there is an increase in the pie for the internet slice, something else must go down. And this comes mostly at the newspapers expense: from 25.4% in 2008 to 21.2% in 2011.

In terms of numbers, the Internet ad market will rise from around US$50 billion in 2008 to US$84.3 billion in 2011, whilst the newspapers ad market will decrease from US$123 billion in 2008 to about US$115 billion in 2011.

Click chart for sharper details or visit ZenithOptimedia

Another piece of interesting news is that, due to the credit crisis, the global ad market will contract (-0.2%) in 2009, with most of the decline in US (-6.7%) and Europe (-1.0%).