By: Jennifer Saba Metro dailies are under siege but not all newspapers are doing so terribly. In fact, a new report issued jointly by the Suburban Newspapers of America (SNA) and the National Newspaper Association (NNA) found that in Q3 2008 advertising revenue for their groups fell only 1.7% to $394 million, compared to the same period a year ago.
Meanwhile, the Newspaper Association of America that keeps a tally of advertising revenue used as a benchmark for the industry found overall ad revenue dropped 18% to $8.9 billion in the same quarter.
The SNA/NNA financial report includes dailies and weeklies representing 10.5 million in circulation with annual revenues of nearly $2 billion.
Moreover, the decline of ad revenue for this group has slowed: in Q1, ad revenue was down 2.7%; in Q2, it was down 2.4%; in Q3 it was down 1.7%.
"Local advertisers continue to value the hyper-local news and desirable local audience provided by community newspapers," Nancy Lane, president of SNA, said in a statement. "Community papers are affected by the current economic downturn but they are not in a crisis; in fact, there are some that are showing growth."
The organizations explained that their groups are also getting hit with declining classified revenue. However, the drop is being offset somewhat by an uptick in retail and preprint advertising.
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