Tuesday 19 March 2013

In 2012 American newspapers lost $16 in press ad revenue for every $1 they gained in digital ad revenue

"In 2012, [US] newspapers lost $16 in print ads for every $1 earned in digital ads. And it's getting worse, according to a new report by Pew. In 2011, the ratio was just 10-to-1.
The digital ad revolution, always "just around the corner", remains tantalizingly out of reach for most newspapers, which explains why some stalwarts like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have moved to subscription models for their websites to bolster digital ad growth. Just today, the Washington Post announced a paywall.
[...]
Since 2003, print ads have fallen from $45 billion to $19 billion. Online ads have only grown from $1.2 to $3.3 billion. Stop and think about that gap. The total ten-year increase in digital advertising isn't even enough to overcome the average single-year decline in print ads since 2003."
Full Pew report here

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for drawing attention to the massive discrepancy, Dan. An obvious follow-up question is: where have the dollars gone..? TV ad revenues are also down, and radio - pfft!
Any thoughts..?

Dan said...

I think it's gone to things like performance media, especially Google, plus to social media, and to video ads. Newspapers can sell these ad formats, but they face heavy competition.
This is a great presentation from Google on newspaper economics from 2010:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28084224/030910-Hal-Varian-FTC-Preso