Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal newspaper, yesterday said that the advertising conditions remain weak, with print ad revenues declining by 20.9% during Q1 to $236.1 million.
Electronic editions Online publishing revenues fell by 4.4.% in Q1 to $77.8 million. The Wall Street Journal Online is the largest paid subscription news site on the web. Its subscriber base continued to grow, reaching 640,000 by the end of March.
Electronic publishing operating income rose by 94.4% year on year to reach $15.2 million.
Outlook Dow Jones said that it expects lineage at the Wall Street Journal to be down 10% to 20% in Q2 2002, painting a rather pessimistic picture of the US newspaper advertising market.
Comment Dow Jones’ reliance on technology and financial sector advertising – which has been hard-hit by the downturn – has seen its figures dip particularly steeply in recent months. However, a recent report in Editor and Publisher suggested that US newspapers are showing stronger ad revenues than had been anticipated (see Forecasts).