Newspaper Ads Worth $11.1bn in Q1

According to the Newspaper Assn of America, online advertising for newspapers in the US and Canada was up almost 35% overall. Here’s the breakdown for Q1:

Print:

• Classifieds: Up 4.7% to $3.8bn (“real estate advertising climbed 26.3% to $1.1 billion; recruitment advertising increased 2.4% to $1.1 billion. Automotive was down 14.5% to $940 million. All other classifieds were up 11.9 percent to $702 million.&rdquo
• Retail: Down by 1% to $4.8bn
• National advertising: Down 4.8% to $1.7bn

So print overall was up 0.3%, but Cars were down a significant 14.5%, as was national advertising (down almost 5%). This is money that is going online at the expense of the print publication. The question is: are newspaper websites capturing (some or any of) that revenue? I don’t know the answer to that question at the moment.

Online:

First quarter growth was 34.9% to $613 million vs. $454 million a year ago. But the growth rate has slowed slightly from last year’s 39.7%. The NAA said that online revenues were 5.5% of total newspaper revenues. They didn’t break out revenues by category.

When combined, the online and print products tell a decent story. When looked at closely, the print product shows continued (and maybe surprising) strength in some areas (i.e., real estate and general classifieds) and striking weakness in others (i.e., autos and national advertising). Online is growing rapidly and a now meaningful contributor to revenues. But newspapers have to accelerate the development of their sites and online offerings so that they can capture money that leaves the print product (and goes to paid search or verticals in particular).

More than revenues, newspapers need to be concerned about maintaining and growing "usage" (readership) of both the print and online products. Like yellow pages, this is where the vulnerability resides.

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Related: Last month, Ipsos released results of its senior executives survey in the US. The survey looked at, among other things, where business leaders spent their time and what media they considered to be most influential. The survey found that "Senior Executives turn to network TV for entertainment; cable TV first for breaking news and sport; believe national newspapers have the best journalists and reliable reporting; and turn to business magazines first for business news."

National print newspapers scored well however:

"Nearly a fifth, 19 per cent, cited this channel as having the most actionable and the most credible advertising, (compared to the internet at just three per cent), and the most informative advertising, 16 per cent. The Wall Street Journal rules the roost amongst national dailies – read by over two fifths, 46 per cent, of the audience; followed by USA Today, thirty per cent, and the New York Times, 14 per cent. Businessweek and Newsweek are jointly most popular weeklies, both read by one fifth of the group."

The survey also showed that consumption of news online did not affect this group's print reading habits.