US newspaper advertising revenue fell a record 18% – nearly $2 billion – in the third quarter, according to new figures from The Newspaper Association of America (NAA).
The NAA found that the sector’s online ad revenue also dipped for the second quarter in a row, down 3% to $749.9 million, from $773 million a year ago.
Print ad revenue was down 19.3% to $8.19 billion from $10.15 billion.
The year-on-year percentage decline is the worst since the NAA began keeping records.
The figures show total ad spending at newspapers fell 18.1% to $8.94 billion, down from $10.92 billion in the third quarter last year.
The last time total quarterly ad spending fell below $9 billion was in the first quarter of 1996.
However, 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).
In March this year a study from comScore found that non-newspaper readers in the US are likely to be younger than average online news consumers, while heavy newspaper readers are more likely than average to engage with traditional print news brands online (see Heavy Online News Consumers Are Not Newspaper Readers)
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