Media General: Ad Sales Down 23% in Publishing

By: Media General Inc. said Thursday that advertising sales in its publishing unit plunged 23 percent in September as the worsening economy further depresses an ad market already suffering from a migration of readers to the Internet.

The latest monthly reports suggest that the year-over-year improvements seen a month earlier were temporary, as many analysts had feared given that the financial meltdown last month was bound to cause consumers and advertisers alike to cut back on spending even more.

Advertising sales in publishing fell only 20 percent in August compared with the same month last year. That was better than the nearly 22 percent decline in July but worse than the three months before that.

Online revenue, meanwhile, increased 8.1 percent in September. The company said local online advertising rose nearly 19 percent primarily resulting from better staffing and training.

Analysts are closely watching the monthly reports from leading publishers after they started reporting revenue dipping even faster than anticipated this summer. Before, the declines mostly resulted from the shift to the Internet, particularly for once-lucrative classified ads. The worsening economy caused advertisers to pull back across the board.

Media General (nyse: MEG - news - people ), which publishes The Tampa Tribune in Florida, the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia and more than 20 other daily newspapers, said revenue was particularly bad in Florida. Tampa is one of the areas hit hard by the sinking real estate market.

Overall, revenue in the Richmond, Va.-based company's publishing division, which includes circulation, dropped 19 percent in September. For Florida, it was 28 percent.

Circulation revenue grew 4.2 percent as most of its newspapers raised prices Sept. 1.

Broadcast revenue dropped 8 percent overall. Higher-than-expected political ad revenue helped offset weak sales in broadcast elsewhere. Media General has stations in several swing states, including Florida and Ohio.