State of the Newspaper Industry

From PaidContent.org:
Newspaper Roundup: Online Revenues Remain Positive, While Print Decline Continues

By David Kaplan - Fri 15 Jun 2007 11:38 AM PST

The May newspaper revenue figures are starting to trickle in and the trend of mixed- to decreased print revenues, off-set by rising online ad sales seem to be continuing. As we reported earlier, while recent data shows that online advertising remains healthy, newspapers are expected to experience a slowdown in internet revenue. In April, media industry researcher Borrell Associates projected that online ad spending for newspapers was likely drop to the low 20s this year from 28 percent last year...

(this replaces a previous story that I didn't mean to post.) But the stories relate the same thing.

 

Dan,

Is the 2006 part a typo or is this from last year?

 

This is old.

In other news, the North slipped by the South, the Japanese bombed an unsuspecting Pearl Harbor and the Packers of Green Bay defeated the Chiefs of Kansas City in the AFL-NFL World Championship at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum before a sparse crowd.

 

Check this one out on Romenesko:

"Newspaper industry stories are too pessimistic, says Belo CEO."

"Belo chief executive Robert Decherd says press coverage has cast the newspaper industry's troubles in an unfairly harsh light, and that coverage of the business has a self-fulfilling aspect. "Every one of the stories talks about the Armageddon." Advertisers and readers, says Decherd, "can't help but be affected by it."

Circulation scandals, firing over-55 employees, buying out others with high readership profiles and getting rid of sections advertisers and readers like will tend to make them wonder if you know what you are doing. I guess in Dallas that's Armageddon.

 

Clearly these stories are only encouraging the terrorists...
FROM YAHOO:
Tribune Revenues Down 11.1% in May
Wednesday June 20, 4:15 pm ET
Publishing Advertising Revenues Decline 11.8%; Television Revenues Down 11.0%
CHICAGO, June 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Tribune Company (NYSE: TRB - News) today reported its summary of revenues and newspaper advertising volume for period 5, ended May 27. Consolidated revenues for the period were $406 million, down 11.1 percent from last year's $457 million.
Publishing revenues in May were $292 million compared with $325 million last year, down 10.3 percent. Advertising revenues decreased 11.8 percent to $230 million, compared with $261 million in May 2006.
-- Retail advertising revenues decreased 1.0 percent with weakness in the
amusement category partially offset by strength in the home furnishings
and specialty merchandise categories. Preprint revenues, which are
principally included in retail, were flat for the period.
-- National advertising revenues declined 17.9 percent, with most
categories down for the period.
-- Classified advertising revenues decreased 20.0 percent. Real estate
fell 30 percent with significant declines in the Florida markets,
Chicago and Los Angeles due to difficult year-over-year comparisons.
Help wanted declined 20 percent and automotive decreased 7 percent.
Interactive revenues, which are primarily included in classified, were
$22 million, up 22 percent, due to growth in all categories.

 

"Difficult year over year comparisons?" That's one of the more ingenious ways of saying "the housing market went in the crapper" that I've ever seen.

 

I think what troubles me the most about the negative news coming out of the Mid-Year is that I haven't seen a lot of evidence that the industry is poised to do whatever it takes to increase revenues. Is there something on the horizon that will change the revenue trend? A cut and cut philosophy clearly isn't helping increase revenues. You'd think at least one chain would try and do something different at some point. Otherwise, I see public companies spinning off their newspapers into private local operations or the other idea is that they become non-profit similar to colleges and universities.

 

I don't get how "Their own shortsightedness" wasn't one of the options.

Classic to see that the Big, Bad Bush Administration was being blamed for the decline of newspapers. It's easy to forget now what a convenient bogeyman Bush was for whatever ailed you.

 

Eastman Kodak in the S&P Midcap 400... how the really former mighty have fallen.

EK was a bigger swinging dick than the NY Times Co. This was a stock that for YEARS was not only in the S&P 500, but the Dow 30.

And Piotr, there's plenty to blame the former denizen of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for, but outside of that yarn about the Bush Admin wanting papers to die so they couldn't investigate them, I haven't seen much blame placed on Dubya for this.

Your shortsighted comment was more dead-on nails, as was Old Hack's evisceration of the Belo idiocy.

 

A friend of mine is a VP for Kodak. A few years ago, I heard he had been laid off. I e-mailed him to find out and he said not only was he not laid off, he was on the restructuring committee, but he knew they were facing perilous times because 85 percent of their revenue came from film sales.
They've recovered pretty well, but there's no way they could maintain what they had without their bread-and-butter product that consumers had to buy over and over.

 

Just bought the wife a Kodak pocket video camera for Christmas. First Kodak product I've bought in many years.