Online advertising sales during 2004 were up 32 percent over 2003, The Hollywood Reporter said Wednesday.

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The paper said the figure broke a record set during the height of the Internet bubble -- and provided evidence the Internet is rapidly gaining strength at the expense of TV and other older media.

Citing data provided by Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, The Reporter said online ad sales amounted to $9.6 billion last year, up from $7.3 billion during 2003. Fourth-quarter sales were up 24 percent over the same period in 2003.

Fourth-quarter figures are estimates, based on an examination of the top 15 sellers of online advertising. PricewaterhouseCoopers does not disclose which sellers it examines, but The Reporter -- citing figures provided by Nielsen//NetRatings -- said companies displaying the most online ads last month included Yahoo!, MSN, MySpace.com, America Online and CNN.