News Release
For more information, contact Nancy Lane, President, Suburban Newspapers of America
at (843) 390-1531 or nancy.lane@suburban-news.org.
Community newspapers remain the sweet spot of the industry with only a slight downturn
in advertising revenues, according to second quarter 2008 financial data collected
by the trade association — Suburban Newspapers of America (SNA). The SNA financial
reporting group reports total ad revenue at $482 million, a 2.4% decline from the
same quarter in 2007.
Hundreds of daily and weekly community newspapers, representing nearly 14.5 million
in circulation with annual revenues of over $2 billion, now participate in the SNA
financial reporting group. A beta report conducted earlier this year by SNA showed
a 2.7% decline for the first quarter of 2008 against the same quarter of 2007. The
group also reported total ad revenues were up .5% (2007 vs. 2006) as compared to
the overall industry decline of 7.9% as reported by the Newspaper Association of
America.
“Community newspapers are doing well because they provide much needed hyper-local news and advertising,” said SNA President Nancy Lane. “Advertisers, especially at the community level are reaching an engaged audience that no other medium can effectively serve.”
After experiencing a growth year in 2007, and in contrast to overall industry financial
headlines, community newspapers are not experiencing the massive ad revenue declines,
according to findings in the second quarter report.
“Most of our newspapers also are not overly-reliant on classified or national advertising
and this serves them well during this current economic downturn,” Lane said.
John Janedis, senior analyst for Wachovia Equity Research, predicts that the overall
industry advertising revenues will be under prior year for the second quarter of
2008 by about 13.4%. He calls it “one of the worst quarters in industry history.”
“Community newspapers are a stark contrast in a closer financial analysis,” explains
Lane in advance of today’s co-hosted call with Wachovia Bank. On the call, Janedis
will discuss the second quarter results in greater detail. Featured speakers Donna
Barrett, President/CEO, Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. and David Black, President/CEO,
Black Press also will provide insight. They represent two of the larger, privately-held,
community newspaper companies in North America.
A replay will be offered in the coming days. “We encourage as many as possible to
listen in and learn about the important distinctions between the various segments
of the newspaper industry,” said Lane, who sees variance explanations provided by
the SNA reporting group. The explanations reveal that declines are related to the
economy and are not a shift to other media, she said.
“In almost all cases, losses are in classified advertising and real estate in particular,”
Lane notes. “Many newspapers in the reporting group showed growth in the local and
preprint categories while online revenues also were up dramatically for many.”
On the expense side, many community newspapers have not implemented or plan to implement
staff reductions. Half of the group continues to invest in new product launches,
Lane adds.
Suburban Newspapers of America is a trade association representing nearly 2,400
daily and weekly newspapers in the United States and Canada. SNA has experienced
seven years of record growth and is experiencing a strong year in 2008 — another
indication of the strength of this segment of the industry. LocalPoint Media, a
new national network managed by SNA’s for-profit subsidiary, exceeded $250,000 in
sales through June — representing all new national business for the community
newspaper industry. Conference and contest numbers are up in 2008 as community newspapers
continue to invest in education for their employees. For more information, visit
www.suburban-news.org and
www.snalocalpapers.com.
Note about the second quarter report: financial data was tracked for all products
published except dailies over 100,000 (although most SNA members do not publish
papers in this size range). Due to the wide variety of reporting procedures, only
total advertising was tracked. Category variances were explained in open-ended fields.