Online ad spend up for newspapers, but not enough to cover their losses in print ad spend

Posted by Ben Thalman on May 30, 2007 at 12:09 PM

According to the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper websites’ ad revenues rose 22.3 percent to $750 million in Q1 compared to Q1 2006. However, this impressive increase, in general, did not make up for losses in the newspapers’ print advertising revenues.

This $750 million of online ad revenue made up only 7.1 percent of total newspaper ad revenue ($10.6 billion), which suffered a 4.8 percent decrease compared to Q1 2006. And print advertising revenue fell 6.4 percent to $9.8 billion compared to 2006.

According to the Financial Times, for every print reader lost, in terms of subscription and advertising revenue, tens of online readers must be gained.

In order to keep users coming back and attract new ones, newspaper sites are constantly redesigning and revising. The possibility of a slowdown in online ad spending only increases the pressure to continually evaluate and redesign news sites.

Source: Paid Content and Financial Times through MSNBC

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