Thanks to Alan Mutter for his update on recent newspaper advertising revenue trends reported this month by the Newspaper Association of America, where he observes that the ad revenue rebound experienced by other media has largely bypassed the newspaper industry.
Smaller newspapers, especially those in relatively isolated markets, probably have done better than the industry as a whole. But the much-hoped-for rebound for newspapers does not seem to have materialized.
For some perspective, I charted trends from 1979 to the present, using data from the NAA site and adjusting that for inflation. One thing that’s especially striking is the steep decline in dollars per reader over the past few years, even as the number of readers has fallen substantially, providing a smaller denominator, which you would expect to flatten the line a bit more.
And consider this: You have to go all the way back to 1984 to find a time when newspaper print revenue was lower than 2009, in inflation-adjusted terms.
The blue line shows total print advertising revenue, as compiled by the NAA and adjusted for inflation. The red line shows revenue per annual sold copy.
The blue bars show morning papers, the red bars show afternoon papers. Data from NAA.
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