Enterprise: Print Struggles, Doomsday Forecasts

Traditional media fortunes diverged sharply over the last five years. While neither broadcast or print media enjoyed strong growth from 2002-2009, newspapers and magazines fared significantly worse than TV and radio. Recent forecasts have them suffering even more losses in 2010, with a possible stabilization in 2011.

However, in view of long-term trends, this forecast is tantamount to simple collapse -- although many years may pass before their actual extinction.

The most recent forecast from Magna (December 2009) has total U.S. newspaper ad revenue sliding 9.2% in 2010, 4.2% in 2011, 4.1% in 2012, 4% in 2013, 3.5% in 2014 and 5.8% in 2015. A slightly more positive update to the December forecast, released in April, didn't include any upward revisions for newspapers.

The sustained declines predicted in December leave no doubt about the general trend: Magna has total newspaper ad revenues plummeting from $47.4 billion in 2005 to $18.8 billion in 2015 -- a 60% drop in 10 years.

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If the Magna forecast is accurate, in 2015, total newspaper ad revenues will have declined to their lowest dollar figure since 1982 -- not accounting for inflation. The picture for magazines isn't much better: Magna forecasts sequential ad revenue declines of 6.2% in 2010, 2.2% in 2011, 2.1% in 2012, 1.9% in 2013, 1.5% in 2014, and 3.8% in 2015, for a total loss of 42% over the decade, from $22.4 billion in 2006 to $13 billion in 2015.

This is not an anomaly; it is Armageddon.

And a quick review of print media revenue trends over the last few decades shows it is all too plausible. In retrospect, print media were already on the ropes, even during the boom years of the last decade, reflecting long-term trends dating back at least to 1970.

  In that year, newspaper ad revenues accounted for 30% of total ad spending -- but by 2005, when they reached their peak in dollar terms, they accounted for just 18% of the total. In other words, the rising tide didn't lift all boats.

While newspaper revenues continued to grow, their proportion of total spending shrank, as new spending was concentrated first in broadcast TV, then cable TV, and then the Internet.

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The story is even clearer when you look at year-over-year growth rates in newspaper ad revenues compared to total ad revenues. From 1970-1989, newspaper ad revenues usually tracked trends in total ad spending very closely: in this period the percent year-over-year changes in newspaper ad revenues either matched, exceeded or came within two percentage points of the overall ad growth rate in 15 out of 20 years, 75% of the time.

But the dynamic began to change over the last two decades. From 1990-1999, newspapers only managed to do this in four out of 10 years (40% of the time) and from 2000-2009 it happened only twice, in 2003 and 2005 (20%).

An even starker picture emerges when you compare newspaper growth rates with GDP. Traditionally, newspapers almost always outpaced GDP: from 1970-1999, there were only three years when newspaper revenues failed to match or exceed the percent change in GDP (10% of the time). But from 2000-2009, newspaper revenues failed to match or exceed GDP in six out of 10 years (60%).

Magazines have also suffered a marked change in their fortunes over the last decade. While official rate-card revenue figures tend to be unreliable, a review of historical growth rates in ad pages reveals a trend that's roughly parallel to newspapers. From 1970-1999, the percent growth rate in magazine ad pages beat GDP in 19 out of 30 years, or 63% of the time -- but from 2000-2009, they only beat GDP in one year -- 2004 -- equaling just 10% of the time.

It's worth noting that the recent steep declines don't necessarily correspond to similar losses in audience for both print media; this suggests that the main issue in the minds of advertisers is the lack of interactivity and online-style measurability in print advertising, rather than a migration of print readership to the Internet.

Looking at circ figures for the nation's 60 largest newspapers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, total circulation declined 22% from 21.5 million in March 2005 to 16.7 million in March 2010. While a significant drop, this is just half the 44% decline in ad revenues from 2005-2009.

In consumer magazines, the disparity is even more noticeable: according to the Publishers Information Bureau, ad pages have plummeted 30% from a total 248,000 in 2004 to just 174,000 in 2009 -- but over the same period, an analysis of audience figures from Mediamark Research and Intelligence showed that the total audience for 70 leading consumer magazines actually increased slightly.

1 comment about "Enterprise: Print Struggles, Doomsday Forecasts".
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  1. Jonathan Mirow from BroadbandVideo, Inc., May 12, 2010 at 2:06 p.m.

    I know, let's put up pay walls! That'll help them out!

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