For First Time in Two Years, Newspaper Advertising Decline in Single Digit for Q1

Newspaper print and online advertising continued to drop in the first quarter of the year, but the 9.7% year-over-year decline was the mildest since the first quarter of 2007, according to new figures from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

NAA said newspaper ad revenues for print and online totaled $5.978 billion in Q1.

The 9.7% drop compares with a 28.3% year-over-year decline in the last quarter of 2009, and a 29% drop in Q3 2009.

Total print ad revenue in Q1 was down 11.4% to $5.247 billion. While the percentage drop was an improvement from Q4 drop of 29.4%, the dollar amount shows just how far newspaper ad revenue has tumbled during the three years of the industry’s deep slump and the Great Recession. The Q1 revenue is less than half the $10.5 billion NAA reported in the first quarter of 2006.

Still, there were some significant improvements across all categories of advertising. Classified, for instance, fell by more than 30% in every quarter in 2009. The year-over-year decline for Q1 2010 was just 14.37%, NAA reported. 

Retail was off 11.19% in Q1, a big improvement from the 24.3% drop in the final quarter of 2009.

National advertising dipped 8.25%, compared with a fall of 19.8% in the previous quarter.

And online ad spending, which declined quarter after quarter for all of 2008 and 2009, turned positive in Q1, rising 4.9% to $730 million.

The results, said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm show the ad environment for newspapers is turning for the better.

“While broad, macroeconomic factors indicate we are not out of the woods yet, NAA is encouraged by the improvements we are seeing in newspaper ad spending,” he said. "At the core of these latest statistics is the fact that declines are moderating across the board and, in some instances, have turned positive. Total newspaper online ad spending increased nearly five percent in the first quarter, a sign that marketers are returning to newspapers and recognize the highly-engaged audience and brand power our medium continues to deliver in the digital space.”

NAA, Sturm added, continues “to hear the that an advertising rebound is getting closer.  These sentiments, combined with the changes newspaper companies have made to their business models to develop new, multiplatform strategies, reinforce the industry’s strategic positioning within a new media landscape.”