Several newspaper publishers have reported solid growth in digital advertising revenue for the second quarter in recent days, helping offset continuing declines in print advertising. The New York Times, for instance, reported 21% growth in digital-ad revenue against a 6% drop in print advertising, keeping total advertising “roughly flat” with the year-earlier quarter. Digital now accounts for 26% of its total ad revenue, up from 22%.
But that is mainly because print revenue has shrunk so much, rather than because digital has got so big. At the Times Co., print-ad revenue for the news group fell $15 million, to $232 million, while its digital-ad revenue rose $8.3 million. Growth at the About.com portal also boosted digital. Industrywide, print-ad revenue fell by nearly half between 2000 and 2009, a loss of about $24 billion. But newspapers’ online revenue totaled only $2.7 billion last year.
That includes online classifieds, a segment that has been under pressure from free alternatives. Display advertising, including video, is where newspapers have the most opportunity. The market still is relatively small, just $8 billion in U.S. revenue last year, or 35% of total Internet revenue, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. And newspapers are competing for display dollars with major portals like Yahoo and Google as well as lots of smaller sites.
See full article at: Heard on the Street: Online-Ad Growth at Newspapers Has Mixed Message – WSJ.com.
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