The newspaper industry in the U.S. continues to shrink at an alarming rate. According to the Newspaper Association of America,, total industry advertising (both print and online) in the third quarter was $8.9 billion, down 18 percent from the year before. The online portion of that was $750 million, down 3 percent. So far in the first three quarters of 2008, the industry’s total advertising revenues have shrunk by $5 billion to $27.8 billion.
Print advertising has been declining for ten straight quarters, but this marks only the second quarter that online advertising also went down. More concerning is that the overall rate of decline seems to be accelerating, a trend we noted in September. Here is the percentage change in total newspaper advertising for the past five quarters:
3Q07: -7.4%
4Q07: -10.3%
1Q08: -12.85%
2Q08: -15.11%
3Q08: -18.11%
The fourth quarter will probably be worse.
(Photo by Scott Glovsky).
There is something to be said for newspapers, just as there was for Business 2.0. While I enjoy reading your up to the minute posts on TC, I miss your writing at B2.0.
Not all news needs to be from today. I find that most of the news I read online through RSS or Google News or whatever is current events news.
I am missing out on those beautiful 4 page spreads about someones lifetime achievements or whatever…
Unfortunately (IMO) newspapers are shedding all talented staff and going for the cheap thrill stories. Newspapers are morphing into tabloid journalism. This always has me asking what is their spin? Not wow, that is incredible journo.
Zack,
I completely agree. Certain things like local news/event content; I find a little better in newspapers. I was just looking today what the local paper had for Black Friday. I know its more efficient to do it on the web, but looking over stuff and seeing those spreads u mention is fun.
That’s completely not going so well.And I don’t think they will.But they can hold it a little more time unless all the people on the earth are only relying for online newspaper.
I think its because the content isnt in real time like the internet. The advertising on the net gives you a faster link to the sellers without having to use extra to call and do equiries.
That’s because newspapers are simply not meeting audience or advertiser needs. Also newspaper ads are over priced for what you get.
I think the biggest issue is themselves. They need to go 2.0 in order to survive. I know that locally our newspaper websites suck.. period. They need to combine online with offline a lot better than they are currently doing.
I think they should look to sites like cnn.com and bbc.co.uk for good examples of great online presence.
@David: While I’m inclined to agree with you, Erick points out that even the Web2.0-side of newspapers – the online advertising – is down 3%.
What’s really unfortunate is that some (many? most?) smaller newspapers still haven’t figured out how to “do” online versions right. Our local paper, http://www.bendbulletin.com , provides free access to their online version, but only to full subscribers of their print edition. Non-subscribers can see some articles (e.g. I believe the current day’s headline articles are availble), but most of the rest of the content requires a subscription. Want to send a link to an article to someone you care about? Don’t bother, they probably won’t be able to read it. Want to discuss an article with other readers? Well, they have a comment system, but it’s on articles that most people can’t read so why bother?
“…smaller newspapers still haven’t figured out how to “do” online versions right.”
And you, sir, apparently hasn’t figured out that you can use the ‘reply’ link at David’s post.
Great post and comments!
The only thing to add here is that advertising itself (in current form) is not performing like it used to. Obviously, we are approaching a shift in the way companies engage clients.
The first to innovate a newer interface and strategy will effectively be the Google of the ad world I think. Ironically, Google’s recipe is Web 1.0 in reality.
We have talked for 3 years about new models and strategies, it is a little embarrasing that this aspect of the Web 2.0 (if there ever was such a thing) movement has never really been tweaked.
Always,
Phil Butler
P.S. We are working on it tho
(whups, hit submit too soon
)
Anyhow, it’s shocking how big the disparity is between the role the print edition has in our community and the role the online edition has. The print edition is quite successful – it’s read by the majority of the people in our town. The online edition is a bit of a digital wasteland however. For example, yesterday’s front page articles had a *combined* total of ~1300 page views. And only one person bothered leaving a comment.
This is frustrating not just for their readership but also for some of their younger reporters who have understand how the web is supposed to work. I’ve talked to at least one who would really like to hear what people have to say about the articles he writes, but he never does because nobody is going to bother leaving a comment in an online forum (article) that is read by only a small handful of people.
I dont know, while I know that online ads are taking away from the print industry, I think we have to take into consideration the current economic climate. People and business are just not spending as much money as they were five or ten years ago, so we are bound to see a loss in revenue in all financial sectors. To just chalk it up to the internet without taking that into consideration is just irresponsible reporting.
Agree with david
I also agree.
Rich
http://www.mype.../ThePublicWorks
Real people that live outside of SF still buy and read newspaper. advertising period is down not just for newspapers.
Newspapers executive are more than ever aware of the need to do something different, which presents a great opportunity for some companies (like ours).
In the case of the LA Times, our print-to-mobile platform allowed them to dramatically increase (yes, you heard me right, INCREASE) revenue by augmenting the traditional print with mobile presence solution.
Newspapers still have relationship with local vendors AND local readers which makes them still a reputable local source of information. Consumers are fickle! to survive newspapers must plug back into the consumer’s lifestyle.
I am still seeing growth for video-related advertising as part of an integrated campaign on traditional publications that are adopting intelligent video solutions in their online presence. Which makes sense because a newspaper/print publication with a long-standing focus on ad execution and goodness can definitely produce a better result than this moment of failure…
http://bitpakki...eo-monetization
This is not surprising considering the fact majority of people only buy newspapers on Sunday partly because of free local coupons.
There is no point in wasting my money. I will rather give to homeless people than killing more trees.
Online revenue is down at newspapers because most, save the very biggest, still insist on packaging print & digital ad sales across both classified and display, with the Web component thrown in as the “value add”. Do you realize how many newspapers give away CareerBuilder for free just to prop up, artificially, the print Help Wanted side of the deal? If the legacy print side plummets in value, how many advertisers will jump to paying discretely for the growing (in audience) digital side when they’ve been told for years they could get it for free?
I work with Valpak, which mails half a billion envelopes filled with coupons to homes throughout North America, Canada and Puerto Rico and business is better than ever. I am seeing lots of local businesses cut newspaper, magazine display, etc… but actually increasing their spending on trackable media like direct mail coupons and search engine marketing. It’s hard for a business owner to cut a profitable ad in an economy like this when they know how much monthly traffic they would lose if they did. Newspapers can’t show a hard return like that justifies the budget dollars they’re asking for and that’s why (aside from steadily declining readership) they’re losing their shirts in this economy….imho.
I’d be interested to see how the hard numbers work out. If you lose $1 billion out of a starting $10 billion for five straight quarters (just as an example), the first quarter that would be 10%, the second quarter it would be 11.1%, the third quarter 12.5%, etc. While I know the numbers are bad, I think looking at it in percentages this way may be less helpful than looking at actual dollars lost, imho.
The decline in news paper advertising is pretty scary, we have the problems here in the UK, From what I have read I think online advertising seems to be holding out but the likes of news paper and TV advertising is being hit really hard, you just need to look at the sports channel Setanta going bust yesterday to realise how big the problem is world wide.
Online revenue is down at newspapers because most, save the very biggest, still insist on packaging print & digital ad sales across both classified and display, with the Web component thrown in as the “value add”.
This is frustrating not just for their readership but also for some of their younger reporters who have understand how the web is supposed to work. I’ve talked to at least one who would really like to hear what people have to say about the articles he writes, http://www.videoklipleri.org/ but he never does because nobody is going to bother leaving a comment in an online forum (article) that is read by only a small handful of people.
This will be the same as with web news…
Unfortunately (IMO) are shedding all talented staff and going for the cheap thrill no stories. Newspapers are morphing into tabloid journalism. This always has me asking what is their spin? Not wow, that is incredible journo.
http://www.gecengece.com