US Newspaper Revenue Down 4.0% In First Half, Says NAA

Retail advertising spending was flat in the quarter, off just 0.1% to $5.3 billion. National was down 1.7% to $1.8 billion and classified slipped 4.1% to almost $3.8 billion. Within the classified category in the second quarter, automotive ad spending led the way with an increase of 6.3% to $1.2 billion.

“Though not quite into the positive territory we’d like to see, the continued improvement in these numbers gives us some cause for guarded optimism,” says NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm. “[As] the economy slowly expands, we expect this gradual trend toward improvement in newspaper ad spending to continue as well.”

First half figures For the first half of 2002, retail advertising expenditures were down 0.5% to $9.8 billion, national declined 2.6% to $3.5 billion and classified dropped 8.9% to $7.3 billion. This gives a total newspapers revenue decline of 4.0% for H1 2002.

“The drag in recruitment ads due to conditions in the current labour market is holding back improvements in the overall total,” said NAA vice president of business analysis and research, Jim Conaghan.

2002 Newspaper Advertising Expenditures
	National	Retail	Classified	Total
Q1 2002	$1.7	$4.6	$3.5	$9.7
% Change	-3.5	-0.8	-13.6	-6.2
Q2 2002	$1.8	$5.2	$3.8	$10.9
% Change	-1.7	-0.1	-4.1	-1.8
H1 2002	$3.5	$9.8	$7.3	$20.6
% Change	-2.6	-0.5	-8.9	-4.0
Source: NAA, August 2002