By: Lucia Moses As publishing executives gather in rain-soaked New York this week for the Mid-Year Media Review for analysts and investors, they continue to face a mostly bleak business climate.
Public companies' May ad revenue reported last week showed retail and help-wanted still soft due to the war's residual effect, bad weather, and economic malaise. The Conference Board's latest Help-Wanted Advertising Index declined in April for the fourth straight month.
Longtime forecaster Robert Coen at Universal McCann didn't spread any more sunshine last week when he revised down his 2003 ad spending forecasts, although he did predict growth to quicken in 2004. Coen now looks for local newspaper ad spending to rise 3.5% this year, down from his December forecast of 5.7% growth.
"We lost a lot of steam and we're building it back up," said Miles E. Groves, chief economist for the Barry Group consultancy. "It really is a market-specific thing in retail. Some people are starting to report improvement in national, and what's still hurting is help-wanted. It's a next-year deal at best."
Publishers also face rising costs; a March paper price hike is starting to stick, and some producers have announced another increase for August. Yet Christa M. Sober, who follows newspapers for Thomas Weisel Partners LLC, said, "We're still not at a demand level that would warrant a full increase."
The department store, travel and consumer electronics categories also continued to suffer last month. Offsetting somewhat were gains in auto, real-estate, financial, telecom, entertainment, and health.
On the bright side, some companies report June ad trends are showing improvement over May. And Credit Suisse First Boston analyst William Drewry noted radio advertising is picking up in June, indicating that improvement in local advertising is heading newspapers' way, too.
---
E&P welcomes letters to the editor:
letters@editorandpublisher.com.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here