The incredible shrinking newspaper

Even as a Wachovia analyst predicted that newspaper print advertising would fall 12 percent this year — falling 10.4 percent overall this year and falling another 6.5 percent next year — reality caught up to and ran past the prediction as the Newspaper Association of America said newspaper ad revenue fell 14 percent in the first quarter overall and 35 percent in job and real estate classifieds. Jon Fine, as I pointed out in the post below, summarizes the shrinkage of newspapers. The other day, he quoted newspaper owner Dean Singleton’s sober state of the U.S. industry: “By my estimate, as many as 19 of the top 50 metro newspapers in America are losing money today, and that number will continue to grow. The large metros are the hardest hit by change, and they’re the most difficult to change.” Nothing new here. The alarm bell just got louder.