• by Paul Gough , January 28, 2004

Ad sales rose at The Wall Street Journal in the fourth quarter, lifting parent Dow Jones & Co. in what the company continues to describe as a tough market.

Revenues rose to $420.7 million, up 6 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2002. Dow Jones' revenue was led by an 8.1 percent rise in ad linage at The Journal during the quarter. It was the second consecutive quarter of increases in ad linage. December was particularly strong, with a 14 percent increase that put Dow Jones ahead of the estimates made last year.

But that didn't mean that Dow Jones executives were dancing in the aisles. In a conference call with analysts Tuesday morning, Chairman/CEO Peter Kann noted that 2003 was another tough year, with results that haven't matched the good times of a few years ago. Kann noted that although December's business-to-business advertising revenues were up double digits, this followed a 1 percent decline in November and a so-far flat January. Kann said that advertising decisions continued to be made shortly before deadline. He said there was a "modestly improving business environment" in 2003.

"We're not out of the woods yet," said Rich Zannino, chief operating officer of Dow Jones.

Dow Jones--which does not include its flagship newspaper but includes other financial publications like Barron's, its news wires, and the Ottaway community newspaper group--is unlike most of the other publicly traded newspaper companies. It doesn't release as much detail as other newspaper companies.

For instance, Dow Jones finished up the quarter with $249.08 million in advertising revenues across its entire platform, compared to $227.5 million in fourth-quarter 2002. Advertising revenues for the full year declined from $877.68 million in 2002 to $871.81 million in 2003. Fourth-quarter circulation revenue was $98.97 million in 2003, compared to $99.61 million in 2002. Full-year circulation revenue was also down, from $400.27 million in 2002 to $389.8 million in 2003.

The Wall Street Journal and other U.S.-based print publications' advertising revenue totaled $163.6 million in the fourth quarter, compared to $150.81 million during the same period in 2002. But it was down for the full year, from $585.85 million in 2002 to $570.35 million in 2003. At the Ottaway newspaper group, total advertising rose to $62.52 million in the fourth quarter compared to $53.07 million during the same period in 2002. With comparable assets, revenues were $53.88 million in the fourth quarter of 2003 compared to $53.07 million in 2002. Full-year comparable revenues were up slightly, from $199.91 million in 2002 to $203.13 million in 2003.

Journal linage was up overall in the fourth quarter, with a 2.2 percent rise in general advertising, a 13.8 rise in technology, 7 percent in the financial category, and a 19.9 percent jump in classified. For the full year 2003, general, technology, and financial categories were down and classified was up. Ottaway's ad linage was down 3.9 percent in the fourth quarter, and down 2.5 percent for the full year at its dailies.