A.H. Belo Corp.
A.H. Belo says in its second-quarter earnings report that it will increase its investment in 508 Digital, “a new division at The Dallas Morning News that provides digital marketing solutions for underserved small and medium-sized businesses,” from $3 million to $4 million this year. It expects to make $1.5 million from 508 Digital.
On the other hand, the company has scaled back a $4 million advertising and marketing campaign for the newspaper. It now plans to spend $2 million to $2.5 million on that this year.
Like other companies, A.H. Belo’s print advertising is down more than its digital revenue is up. Overall revenue didn’t decline as much as it did in the first quarter, however. Second-quarter earnings were $262,000, a margin of 0.25 percent.
Advertising revenue, including print and digital revenues, decreased 8 percent, with the smallest percentage decrease at The Press-Enterprise followed by The Dallas Morning News and The Providence Journal. Display advertising revenue decreased 15 percent to $21.5 million, and preprint revenue decreased 1 percent to $20.3 million. Classified revenue decreased 13 percent to $13.6 million. Digital revenue increased 1 percent to $8.8 million. When the impact of a revenue allocation discontinued in 2012 is excluded, digital revenue increased 8 percent. Digital automotive revenue increased 16 percent year-over-year.
Circulation revenue declined 3 percent for the company, in part because single-copy sales were so strong in 2011 due to the Dallas Mavericks’ championship. (That’s a circulation strategy: Winning sports teams!). The company made up some of the decline by outsourcing The Providence Journal’s newspaper delivery.
The report doesn’t break out the impact of its website paywall, which has been up for more than a year.
The company also is using using less newsprint (down by 4 percent from the year before) because its papers have fewer pages.
