A new report from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), an organization representing over 2,000 newspapers in the US and Canada, shows that print and online advertising expenditures together totaled $11.1 billion for the first quarter of 2006, a 1.8% year-over-year increase. Spending for print ads in newspapers totaled $10.5 billion, a 0.3% increase on the same period a year earlier led by strong gains in real estate advertising, according to the NAA.
Broken down by segment, the data shows that 'Retail' and 'National' advertising spending fell 1.0% and 4.8% respectively, while classified ads grew 4.7%, compared to the same time a year earlier. Within the print classified category, real estate advertising climbed 26.3% to $1.1 billion; recruitment advertising increased 2.4% to $1.1 billion. Automotive was down 14.5% to $940 million. All other classifieds were up 11.9% to $702 million.
Advertising spending for newspaper Websites in Q1 2006 totaled $613.28 million, up from $454.62 million a year earlier, equating to an increase of 34.9% according to preliminary estimates from the NAA.
"As the main ad-supported medium in local markets, newspapers that understand 'news' trumps 'papers' can rake in a fair share of the still-evolving local online advertising market," said David Hallerman, eMarketer Senior Analyst. "Their brands are still strong. Part of the steady cash flow many newspapers generate needs to be diverted for making their Websites into complete multimedia centers for the increasingly non-paper focused local audience."
Clearly, though, online ads are an important driver of the newspaper industry's continuing growth, but it is worth noting that total print and online newspaper advertising spending totaled $49.4 billion in 2005, of which only 4% of that spending was done online, so the demise of the broadsheet and tabloid is still some way off.
For more information on the online newspaper sector, see eMarketer's report, eMarketer's Online Publishing: Focus on Newspapers.