Total revenues for the U.S. newspaper and magazine publishing industries dropped again in 2015, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. The latest round of declines,
mostly due to continuing losses in print advertising, compound a decade of steady erosion in publishing revenues.
Newspaper publishers saw total
revenues fall 3.8% from $28.1 billion in 2014 to $27 billion in 2015, according to the Census Bureau. The latter figure is down 44% from total revenues of $48.3 billion in 2007.
Total magazine
publishing revenues fell 3.7% from $29.4 billion in 2014 to $28.3 billion in 2015. The latter figure is down 43% from $49.3 billion in 2007.
Although the Census Bureau figures don’t
break out circulation and advertising revenues, results from big publishers confirm that most of the losses for both newspapers and magazines have resulted from drops in print ad revenue.
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For
example, Time Inc. posted a 6.6% decline in print advertising in the fourth quarter to $382 million, while the New York Times Co. also posted a 6.6% decline in print ad revenue.
In recent
years, the Newspaper Association of America and Publishers Information Bureau have both stopped publishing figures for their respective industries’ advertising revenue and ad pages.
With
ad revenues declining and print circulation stagnant or declining, more publishers are turning to digital circulation revenues, hoping to monetize online readers with paywalls and digital
subscriptions.
At the New York Times Co., total circulation revenues increased 1.3% in 2015, thanks to a 13.8% increase in revenues from digital subs, which contributed $192.7 million, and the
company closed the year with around 1.1 million digital-only subs.
However, other publishers have struggled to replicate this success. For example, Gannett Co. ended the year with just 125,000
digital-only subs, while Tribune Publishing had only 81,000 at the end of the third quarter.