Newspaper sales crisis enters sixth year

 newsosaur reporting:
Following an unexpectedly sharp decline in advertising demand in the first three months of this year, newspapers now appear to be entering the sixth year of an unprecedented collapse that has vaporized half of their principal revenues since 2006.
The Newspaper Association of America, the industry’s trade association, reported yesterday that print sales fell by a steep 9.5% in the first three months of the year, dropping industry-wide print sales to $4.7 billion, a level not seen since 1983.
Print sales in the first quarter of 2011 were only 45% of the $10.5 billion in revenues produced by the industry in the first quarter of 2006, the last three-month period in which newspapers collectively showed positive year-to-year growth. As illustrated in the chart below, print sales have been falling relentlessly since April 1, 2006.
In the first quarter of 2011, real estate classified advertising slid by 19.3% from the prior year, while national tumbled 11%, retail fell 9.5% and auto classified was down 4.7%. Only employment classified gained by 4.3%.
... The reason newspaper sales are not recovering is that consumers and marketers are moving ever more aggressively to the digital media.Consumers can find more information, can obtain more choice and can transact business more efficiently on a laptop or a smart phone than they can with even the very best newspaper. Advertisers understand this. Further, advertisers know they can target customers more efficiently via the digital media than they ever can with print – and at a much lower cost per transaction, too.

The bad news for publishers in the first-quarter figures is that the stubborn refusal of ad sales to recover removes any remaining doubt that newspapers are experiencing a secular change that will radically change their businesses forever. A secular change like, say, the move from kerosene lamps to electric lights is one that does not reverse itself when the economy improves.
http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2011/06/newspaper-sales-crisis-enters-sixth.html