US Newspaper Ad Revenues Drop To 60Yrs Low
Poor newspaper publishers in the US. Their advertising revenues of $20.7 billion in 2011 will be the lowest annual amount spent on newspaper advertising since $19.5 billion in 1951, exactly 60 years ago…
Even when online advertising revenues are added to the offline newspaper print ads, the combined total spending for print and online advertising in 2011 will still only be about $22.6 billion, just slightly more than the $22.5 billion spent on print advertising in 1954.
In 2006, being the Chairman of the IAB Netherlands, I predicted an ad revenue drop of about $600 million for newspapers before 2011. Back then, the prediction was not taken very lightly by publishers. But this prediction was pretty accurate, we know now.
I do feel truly sorry for newspaper publishers. The world is changing in rapid pace and nobody within the Gen-Y audience seems to find any reason why to pay for ‘old news
News travels so extremely fast in the digital and social era that online news sources and Twitter seem to have the biggest advantage towards offline newspapers.
And I do understand the painful split newspaper publishers are in: News is about speed, but also about checking sources and facts. So many newspapers are quality brands that are sucked into being the fastest, which might do harm to the quality of the news.
The answer to what consumers like better: having fact based news a bit later or getting the news fast and first, seems very clear. How will publishers deal with this trend?
And will this declining trend of newspaper ad revenues continue? Will the revenues drop even further to i.e. $15 billion annual revenues in the US by 2017? If you’d ask me, online ad revenues will grow, but not as fast as the drop of ad revenues in printed newspapers.
So I’m very afraid the ad revenues in printed newspapers will keep dropping to an all-time low before by 2015 already.
Questions to our audience:
How should large publishers act upon this trend?
Do you like citizen journalism better because it’s faster?
What do you think will happen to the ad revenues in printed magazines?
Please share your opinion in the comments below.
Or follow me on Twitter for more stunning news and opinions.
Source: Carpe Diem and Newspaper Association Of America.
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