6 trends for newspapers in 2012, from a Sunday boom to an executive bust

poynter reporting: The 9th annual State of the News Media report, released this morning, has enough statistics to float a boat. But two jumped out at me.
One: Through the first three quarters of 2011, print advertising losses outweighed digital ad gains by a ratio of 8 to 1. Then digital growth slowed in the last quarter of 2011, making the gap for the full year even worse, 10 to 1. Talk about trading print dollars for digital dimes.
Two: In an October earnings report, Google broke out for the first time, how much of its revenue came from mobile advertising: $2.5 billion worldwide in 2011. That caused e-Marketer to raise its previous estimate of the total U.S. mobile ad market by a factor of 50 percent. Analysts expect Google’s mobile revenue to rise to $4 to $6 billion this year.
So as newspapers struggle to get their revenue act together in the promising smart phone and tablet markets, Google is already making off with a lion’s share of that money.
As noted in my report last week on full year advertising statistics, Google revenues ($37.9 billion) were $4 billion greater than those of the entire newspaper industry in 2011. That gap will keep growing in 2012 and the years to follow.
Newspapers expect further revenue declines in 2012, though robust economic recovery could put at least a few back in positive territory. They are trimming reporting and editing staffs, again, in anticipation of another lean year financially.
So is it Google’s fault that Philadelphia’s two newspapers are in the process of cutting 45 more jobs from once well-staffed newsrooms? Or that Gannett’s 80 community newspaper organizations, stripped down versions of their former selves, will be eliminating 600 jobs (across all departments) this spring?
Google and fellow giants like Apple and Facebook have the scale and strategic position to innovate at will; as they do, they also block the way to some of the biggest new revenue opportunities newspapers need for a lift.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/business-news/the-biz-blog/166575/6-trends-for-newspapers-in-2012/