A.H. Belo Revenues Sink Again

Arrow-dowm-on-moneyThe newspaper publishing industry produced another batch of weak results in the third quarter of 2011 -- rounded out this week by A.H. Belo, publisher of The Dallas Morning News and The Providence Journal, which revealed that total revenues fell 7.7% from $119.2 million last year to $110 million this year. As with other big publishers, the decrease was attributed mostly to continuing losses in print advertising, which show no sign of abating even as other media continue to recover.

Total advertising revenues -- including both print and digital -- fell 12.3%, with display ad revenue falling 24.5% to $21.4 million and preprint ad revenue falling 6.7% to $20.5 million. Classified revenues fell 4.5% to $14.7 million. Digital revenues -- in the past a bright spot on the ledger for A.H. Belo and other newspaper publishers -- fell 0.5% to $8.6 million, representing just 7.8% of the company's overall revenues. Circulation revenue also fell 0.5% to $34.7 million.

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As noted, these are just the latest in yet another round of weak results from the newspaper industry.

McClatchy Co. showed total revenues declining 8.4% from $327.7 million in the third quarter of 2010 to $300.2 million in the same period this year, with total advertising revenues declining 10% from $249.1 million to $224.2 million.

The situation at The New York Times Co. was little better, as total revenues fell 3.1% from $554.3 million in the third quarter of 2010 to $537.2 million in the third quarter, due to an 8.8% decrease in advertising revenues.

The third quarter also brought more declines at Gannett Co., where total revenues slipped 3.5% from $1.31 billion in the third quarter of 2010 to $1.27 billion in the third quarter of 2011. The decrease was due mostly to continuing losses at the publishing division, where total revenues dropped 5.3% to $917.8 million. This in turn resulted from an 8.5% drop in publishing advertising revenues to $591.7 million.

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