Newspaper publishers experienced a single-year decline in total revenue of 8.3 percent — from $47.9 billion in 2007 to $43.9 billion in 2008. This followed a more modest decline of 2.7 percent in 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today.
A major contributor to the overall loss in revenues for the industry was the decline in advertising space revenue for general newspapers, which dropped 10.2 percent — from $30.9 billion in 2007 to $27.8 billion in 2008. Revenue from newspaper subscriptions remained largely unchanged over the period, from $8.3 billion in 2007 to $8.2 billion in 2008.
Cable and other subscription programming, such as producing and broadcasting television programs for cable and satellite television systems, continued to see increased revenues, climbing from $40.9 billion in 2007 to $45.1 billion in 2008 — an 10.1 percent increase.
Over the same period, Internet publishing and broadcasting revenues grew 19.8 percent from $16.7 billion to $20 billion, spurred in part by the increase in revenue from one of its sources, publishing and broadcasting of Internet content, which increased 19.6 percent — from $8.7 billion in 2007 to $10.4 billion in 2008.
Source: U.S. Census
Hat Tip: Stuart B.