Internet behemoth Google has seen its advertising revenues overtake the UK's most popular commercial television channel in the third quarter of this year.

According to analysis carried out by The Times, Google pulled in total revenues of £327m compared with an estimated £317m for all of ITV1's output during the same period between July and September 2007.

Last year the ubiquitous internet firm surpassed Channel 4's total advertising bounty, with Google generating £871m in revenue from sponsored links for 2006. For the first nine months of this year, Google's advertising revenue increased to £925m.

For the entire year ITV1 would remain the frontrunner, The Times predicted in its analysis. It said the TV channel should expect to pump out a figure of around £1.3bn in advertising revenue for the year.

The newspaper attributed that total to ITV1's lead in the first quarter as well as bullish fourth-quarter sales.

Of course, the analysis only focused on ITV's main channel and not on any of its digital offerings. The combined total could see the TV firm continue to dominate the advertising landscape, generating expected revenue of about £1.45bn for 2007.

In August this year, media regulator Ofcom said that total UK online advertising spend had broken the £2bn mark in 2006.

It also said that internet advertising spend was now equivalent to more than 80 per cent of advertising spent on Britain's three largest commercial TV channels (ITV1, Channel 4 and Five) by market share. ®

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