I can confirm that in Europe our agency in the last 3 months has seen a major increase in ad spending on the Internet, far beyond the 8.6% increase, more like 8.6% more of the offline budgets are going online. One big brand client went from spending 50,000/month to 200,000/month.

So I don't see this a bleak prediction, I see this as a positive result of the downturn, companies are now looking at what they are doing and are becoming quicker to learn that those big full page ads and billboards downtown don't equal more sales and revenue. Go into any major agency office and you swear you were in a lawyers office or some 5 star hotel, all those "agency fee's" are coming into question.