Figures were released yesterday by the Newspaper Association of America that show that newspaper advertising revenue has fallen by nearly 6 percent in the second quarter of this year, making it a straight decline for the last 4 years (16 quarters). A ray of hope though is that the pace of the decline is slowing down. In the first quarter, Ad revenue fell by 9.7 percent and by 23.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009.
Print Ad revenue has fallen by 11.42%, 25.63%, 28.95% and 30.15% in the last 4 quarters.
It’s not all bad though. Online revenue is on the up. The NAA said print advertising revenue fell 7.62 percent to 5.6 billion dollars in the second quarter while online ad revenue rose 13.9 percent to 743.9 million dollars.
Newspapers across the US have been struggling to stop the migration of their readers to free online news content. The growth of portable tables such as the iPad are making it easier to access news content when they are out and about. A wave of bankruptcies have hit the industry with some of the major players folding, such as the Chicago Tribune.
It is clear now that their only hope of survival is to look online for their ways within the digital publishing industry to generate revenue from readers. One such company is Hearst, one of the nation’s largest diversified media companies. They have been having fantastic results with their digital magazine solutions Yesterday they announced that they plan to reach a total of 35 iPhone, iPad and android apps after its online revenue experienced sharp growth in July.
Advertising revenues climbed an impressive 46% over 2009 figures. In early July, Hearst released its first iPad app version of Popular Mechanics for $1.99. Five days later, the company claimed the app was downloaded more than 10,000 times. 90 percent of their new subscribers came from mobile users.
