Newsquest ad revenue slumps 24%

by Tristan O'Carroll, Media Week 24-Oct-08, 15:10

LONDON - Regional publisher Newsquest has become the latest newspaper group to suffer the effects of the economic downturn, revealing that its ad revenue tumbled by 23.6% year on year in Q3.

Owner Gannett, the US-based media group behind USA Today, said Newsquest's classified ad revenue was 29.1% down year on year. It did not, however, reveal the absolute amount of ad revenues.

Newsquest operates 300 newspaper titles in the UK including The Argus in Brighton and Scotland's Sunday Herald.

It said this fall was caused by declines of 51.3% in real estate ads, a 25.2% fall in employment ads and 25.3% in motors.

Craig Dubow, Gannett chairman, president and chief executive, said the results reflect "the difficult and volatile economy" in the UK.

Gannett added that if the exchange rate between sterling and the US dollar had remained constant, year-on-year ad revenue at Newsquest would have been 16.5% lower including declines of 9.5% in retail, 7.3% in national and 27% in classified.

In August, UK regional newspaper group Newsquest said it had suffered a 24.4% drop in classified advertising revenue in July.

Publishing a financial trading update for June, Gannett said that Newsquest's classified real estate ad revenues plummeted by 44.2%, by 19.4% in employment and 24.5% in automotive.