The New York Times Company posted a negative results for the first quarter of 2008. The loss was small, but the drop to previous year was dramatical. The hardest hit sector was classified advertising that was 22.6 % lower than year ago. Biggest loser was recruitment advertising. March 2008 underlined the poor development of classifieds as the year on year drop was 25.7 %. The fell of classified sectors are detailed in the table below.
The economical downturn – or should we already talk about recession – in the United States hits classified advertising hard. It is normal and every newspaper publisher knows it from past. They also know that previously the classified problem was solved at the same time as the economy recovered. But there is an alternative scenario. There is an alternative scenario that print classifieds will not recover at all or at least not even close to the same level as they used to be. As Mikolas says:
“…this is the real tipping point for advertising in general and online is really starting to eat revenue from domestic newspaper”.
He is right. The US offline classifieds are almost gone and other markets will follow.
5 responses so far ↓
Jaakko Helleranta // April 20, 2008 at 12:39 pm |
Eero,
I think that in the US Craigslist (and eBay and Amazon marketplace(?), etc) is/are a significant factor.
Eero // April 20, 2008 at 6:20 pm |
Hi Jaakko,
Yes you are right. Those are very important generalist marketplaces and I would add at least Kijiji brand (PArt of Ebay) to them.
Let’s keep in mind that there is severe downturn in the US economy. However, I’d say that NY Times as well as the other newspapers suffer long term migration of recruitment, real estate and automobile classifieds to online channels. This is permanent change and it effects dramatically profit margins and revenue split of the newspaper industry. It doesn’t necessarily kill papers as somewhere is prognosed, but moves them to a new kind of position.
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emil // October 16, 2008 at 1:10 pm |
nice article, hope more to come. regards, emil
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