Advertising volumes at the Wall Street Journal declined by 14.8% during August, the newspaper’s parent company, Dow Jones, has announced. This puts Q3 figures down by 16% to date, according to analysts at Merrill Lynch.
Technology, which has been especially weak over the last year (see Advertising Remains Weak As Wall Street Journal Misses Forecasts), was down by 2.1% on very easy comparisons. Financial advertising dropped by 22.5%.
Dow Jones says that September is likely to be down by mid single-digits, which would close the quarter at around -12.0%. This is at the high end of management’s 8-12% decline forecast.