US newspaper ad revenues are forecast to fall to $28.4 billion by 2012, down from an estimated $37.9 billion in 2008, according to new research from eMarketer.
eMarketer forecasts a 15.9% drop in 2009, pulling ad revenues down to $31.9 billion. From 2010 through 2012, the rate of decline will slow but remain in negative territory.
Although many newspapers are pinning their hopes on online, ad revenues there are dropping as well said eMarketer. It estimates that US online newspaper ad revenues declined by 0.4% in 2008 to $3.15 billion.
eMarketer projects US online newspaper ad revenues growth to drop in 2009 by 4.7% to $3.01 billion. The recession, the dismal state of the newspaper industry and the quarterly online ad spending trends for 2008 all factor into these projections.
Carol Krol, senior analyst and author of the Newspapers in Crisis: Migrating Online report, said: “The challenge is continuing to make money with the transition to online.
“Newspapers have the same transition problems that plague other traditional media such as TV, and so far they have not been able to crack the code.”
eMarketer benchmarks its projections against Newspaper Association of America (NAA) data and factors in the recent economic downturn.
At the start of December, the NAA revealed that US newspaper advertising revenue fell a record 18% – nearly $2 billion – in the third quarter (see US newspaper ad revenue falls record 18%).
However, despite eMarketer’s forecasts for US online ad revenues, recent figures from Nielsen Online for the NAA showed that US newspaper websites attracted more than 68.3 million unique visitors on average (41.4% of all internet users) in the third quarter of 2008, a record number reflecting a 15.8% year on year increase (see US Newspaper Websites Get Record Number Of Unique Visitors In Q3).
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