• by Michael Shields , December 27, 2004

Online bulletin board Craigslist has cost newspapers in the San Francisco Bay area between $50 million and $65 million in revenues from help wanted ads, according to a new report by the consulting group Classified Intelligence LLC. The popular community site also has taken a large share of newspapers' merchandise and real estate advertising, according to the 57-page report "Competing with Craig: Strategies and tactics for battling Craigslist and its counterparts."

"Craigslist enjoys local affection that the newspapers can only dream about," wrote Bob Cauthorn in the report. Cauthorn, former vice president of digital media at the San Francisco Chronicle, estimated that for the week ending Nov. 21, 2004, the region's largest newspapers had approximately 4,900 help wanted ads, compared to 12,000 job listings on Craigslist.

Cauthorn, who left the Chronicle in April after more than three years, added that advertisers on Craigslist include the Chronicle's human resources department "because its own recruitment ads deliver unsatisfactory results."

Craigslist isn't the only threat to newspaper classifieds--a $28 billion to $30 billion business in the United States, including $16 billion in daily newspapers. A recent report by niche market firm Corzen, Inc. showed that revenue for the top job boards--CareerBuilder, Monster, and Yahoo! HotJobs--was 47 percent higher in the third quarter of 2004 than the third quarter of 2003, while newspaper help wanteds showed a growth of only 16 percent nationally.

Wendy Davis contributed to this report.