November 26, 2012

Newspaper advertising revenues were down 5.1 percent in the third quarter, compared to the same period in 2011, the Newspaper Association of America reported over the holiday.

Alan Mutter summarizes the trends with this chart.

The results were marginally better than those for the first two quarters of 2012, but the industry has posted advertising losses for 25 consecutive quarters, dating back to 2006.

Digital advertising grew 3.6 percent in the quarter. However that gain failed to cover print losses by a ratio of about 10 to 1. National print advertising was especially soft, falling 10.5 percent year-to-year.

According to company reports in the last month, circulation revenues, buoyed by digital subscriptions and price increases, are holding even or increasing. And some companies are generating growing revenue from other activities like contract printing and social media marketing services. Those categories of revenue are not measured quarterly by NAA.

Support high-integrity, independent journalism that serves democracy. Make a gift to Poynter today. The Poynter Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, and your gift helps us make good journalism better.
Donate
Rick Edmonds is media business analyst for the Poynter Institute where he has done research and writing for the last fifteen years. His commentary on…
Rick Edmonds

More News

Back to News

Comments

Comments are closed.