• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 1, 2015

In a paradox worthy of a Mary Meeker slide, publishers groused that thanks to shifting consumer usage patterns they are now generating more than 60% -- and upwards of 80% -- of their readership from mobile devices. That’s the good news. The bad news, is they’re generating a fraction of their advertising revenues from it.

“Revenue is lagging significantly behind,” Zach Alter, vice president-East Coast sales at SheKnows said during the “mobile” panel at the Publishing Insider Summit this morning, adding that his content currently is generating about 60% of its readership off of mobile devices. Despite estimates that there currently is $40 billion in mobile ad revenue, he noted the vast majority -- “70%” -- of it is going to just two publishers (of sorts): Google and Facebook.

The disparity is even worse for PostMedia, said Vice President-Audience Analytics Jeff Clark, noting that his publications currently generate about 70% of their page views from mobile, but only “30% of revenues.”

Vicky Hsu, VP, Online Marketing, Bauer Xcel Media, said her publications are actually generating 80% of their traffic from mobile now, but are having a difficult time generating proportionate value from advertisers. If anything, she said, there is downward pressure on her mobile CPMs.

“The biggest challenge for us right now is brand advertisers are getting smarter. They no longer want to pay [double-digit] CPMs for mobile,” she explained.