Local Newspapers Go Online To Survive
By Anna Johnson on July 26th, 2008You probably won’t be surprised to learn that local newspaper print advertising revenues are in decline.
In particular, those newspapers that have traditionally earned a large part of their revenue from job classifieds and real estate classified ads must be feeling the pinch as more and more people look for jobs and homes online.
Other areas that local newspapers have traditionally dominated – e.g. local business advertising – is also shifting more and more to the web with the emergence of local search and local business portals. According to Nielsen Monitor-Plus data released in March 2008, advertisers spent about 7 percent less in 2007 on newspaper advertising, while online ad expenditure continued to rise. The decline in print ad spending is likely to continue this year as more consumers turn to the Internet for both their news and local business information.
Indeed, a July 2008 survey conducted by Readership Institute found that 27 percent of Internet users were reading print newspapers less and online news more. This figure was just 19 percent in 2003.
Although local newspaper websites are benefiting from greater online ad revenues, which are predicted to reach $3.7 billion this year, these don’t make up for print ad losses, since advertisers typically pay less for online ad spots than print ad insertions. Look for some rationalization as local newspapers reconfigure their business models in order to survive.
Source: eMarketer, “Can Local Web Ads Save Newspapers?”, eMarketer, July 22, 2008
