Newspaper ad revenue plummets 27%

Newspaper advertising revenue plunged 27 per cent in the United States last year to its lowest level since 1986, according to figures released on Wednesday.

The figures reflect the toll of the recession and a media shift that's driving more marketing dollars to the internet.

Newspapers sold $US27.6 billion ($A30.03 billion) worth of ads in 2009, a figure that includes both print and online revenue.

That's down from $US37.8 billion the year before, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

The picture is even more grim after adjusting for inflation. The $US27 billion in revenue that newspapers received in 1986 would equal nearly $US53 billion ($A58.42 billion) in today's dollars.

Things did improve toward the end of 2009, raising hopes that the worst of the slump is over.

Ad revenue in the final three months of the year fell 24 per cent from a year earlier to $US7.7 billion ($A8.38 billion) - the smallest quarterly percentage decline of 2009.

"Unfavourable trends for newspaper ad spending continued to diminish as the fourth quarter progressed, a sign that business conditions have begun to gradually improve," NAA president and CEO John Sturm said in a statement.

Still, US newspapers have a deep hole to climb out of, having seen ad revenue fall by nearly $US22 billion, or 44 per cent, in unadjusted dollars since 2006.

Although newspapers' websites have offered a small but steadily growing revenue stream, even that was thrown into retreat by the recession.

Online ad revenue fell almost 12 per cent to $US2.7 billion ($A2.94 billion) last year after a two per cent drop in 2008.

The slump has hit other media as well, including magazines, broadcast television and even internet titans such as Google Inc, which saw its breakneck revenue growth slow considerably.

With revenue shrinking, the corporate parents of many of the country's biggest and most respected daily newspapers - the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The (Baltimore) Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Denver Post - sought bankruptcy protection to reduce their debts.

The Rocky Mountain News in Denver closed, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer folded its print edition to go online-only.

Layoffs have become commonplace.

Most painful for newspapers has been the decline in classified advertising, an income source they are unlikely to lure back from cheap or free websites such as Craigslist.

Classified ad revenue tumbled 38 per cent in 2009 to $US6.2 billion ($A6.75 billion).

It's also down more than 68 per cent from a peak of $US19.6 billion in 2000, without adjusting for inflation.

Where classifieds once amounted to as much as 40 per cent of total ad revenue, they now account for just 22 per cent.

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