New Zealand media need to make money

New Zealand's entertainment and media industry must find new ways to make money from the Internet, according to a report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Monday. Although spending was not expected to return to pre-recession levels in the short-term due to the low cost of Internet space, growth rates were set to rise by 5.9 percent by 2015 -- when 1.3 million New Zealand households would have Internet access -- as new technologies and faster and cheaper broadband changed the way consumers paid for entertainment, said the first PwC New Zealand's Entertainment and Media Outlook 2011-2015 report. Between 2006 and 2010, New Zealand magazine and newspaper advertising revenues declined 22 percent, while online advertising grew 388 percent, said the report. However, with advertisers paying less for online space and consumers unwilling to pay for online content, the entertainment and media industry had to introduce new services and models to capitalize on online space, the company warned. According to PwC assurance partner Keren Blakey, overall entertainment and media spending across the world rose by 4.6 percent last year and was predicted to rise by 5.7 percent over the next five years, but the trend masked the accelerating shift of spending from traditional to digital platforms, she said.