Print isn’t dead, not by a stretch, but print advertising is looking at the tail lights of internet advertising in the US for the first time. A significant moment, but TV remains much bigger than online.

Even though this has come ahead of predictions, it was expected later this year, it can’t be much of a surprise.

Overall, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers reveal in their report that a whopping $26bn was spent on online ads in 2010 up 15%.

The 15% rise is welcome news considering that it arrived amidst a terrible recession. Even more revenue in the fourth quarter was up 16% to $7.45 bn

Search advertising (as you can see in the slide below) remains the most popular ad format with $12bn ad dollars spent in 2010 – that’s almost half of the overall ad revenue.

Other notables are solid mobile revenues (including search and display via through tablets and smart phones)  could be worth as much as $650m. That figure would as much as double in the coming 12 months as smart phone and tablet penetration soars.

Elsewhere the fastest growing online ad sector in the US was display advertising. That hit $10bn up 24% while classified ads remained static at 10%.