• Visit the new NNA website at www.nnaweb.org

About NNA

News Archive

Community newspapers report 4th quarter results, continue to outperform industry

Community newspapers report 4th quarter results; continue to outperform industry

Community newspapers were affected by the challenging economy but in a much smaller way than the industry in general, according to fourth quarter 2008 financial data collected by the trade associations Suburban Newspapers of America and the National Newspaper Association. The SNA/NNA fourth quarter financial reporting group reports total advertising revenue at $428.7 million, a 6.6 percent decline from the same quarter in 2007. As a point of comparison, Glennco Consulting Group estimates an overall industry decline in fourth quarter advertising expenditures of 21 percent and many large companies have reported declines in excess of 20 percent.

Hundreds of daily and weekly community newspapers, representing more than 13.35 million in circulation with annual revenues of nearly $2 billion, participated in the SNA/NNA financial reporting group for the fourth quarter. Reports conducted earlier this year by SNA showed a 2.7 percent decline for the first quarter of 2008 against the same quarter of 2007; a decline of 2.4 percent for the second quarter and a decline of 1.7 percent for the third quarter. Again, significantly better results than the overall industry declines reported by the Newspaper Association of America of 12.85 percent, 15.11 percent and 18.11 percent respectively. Based on four quarters of figures from the SNA reporting groups, for full year 2008 the overall decline is estimated at 3.6 percent for community papers versus double digit decreases for the industry in general.

As these results from the SNA financial reports would indicate, community newspapers are not experiencing the massive ad revenue declines that are being felt by some others in the industry. In addition, they are not reducing staff in significant ways. In fact, only half of the reporting companies had staff reductions in 2008, almost entirely through attrition. Indeed, with a focus on growth strategies, 26 percent of the reporting group launched new products in 2008.

“Community newspapers certainly are not immune to the economic downturn that is affecting all businesses, but as the primary and sometimes sole provider of local news in a community, they remain strong and viable,” said NNA President John Stevenson, publisher of the Randolph Leader in Roanoke, AL.

Once again, the variance explanations are economy-driven. Community newspapers are experiencing small declines in advertising revenue mainly because of classified categories that have been hard hit by the slumping economy. In many cases, they have made up much of those losses on the retail and preprint side. Large retailers, for example, have added many community papers to their advertising buys in the last few years to increase their penetration in key markets.

SNA is a trade association representing more than 2,000 daily and weekly newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. For more information, visit www.suburban-news.org, www.snalocalpapers.com.

Note about the reports: financial data was tracked for all products published except dailies more than 100,000 (although most SNA and NNA members do not publish papers in this size range). Because of the wide variety of reporting procedures, only total advertising was tracked. Category variances were explained in open-ended fields. The accounting firm of Dennis, Gartland & Niergarth handled the collection of data and the verification process.