(Image source: MediaPost )

BY NATHAN BYRNE

 

A Reuters report says newspapers’ online ad sales are stalling — despite efforts to reduce costs by cutting back on print and focusing on the web. The Times-Picayune in New Orleans is one of the more high-profile examples.


According to WWL , in May, the Times-Picayune’s parent company …

Reporter: “ … announced the paper would drop down to three days a week to devote more time to its online publication.”

Greg Rusovich: “We’ve got to have a daily newspaper.”


Reporter: “Greg Rusovich, who chairs the Regional Coalition of Business Councils says the group would help the paper find new ad revenue … ”

The Newspaper Association of America says first-quarter revenue rose just one percent for newspapers.
 

It marks the fifth consecutive quarter of decline in growth, according to a writer for The Guardian , who says…

“This troubling trend comes against a background of US newspapers fleeing print to go online and the imposition of paywalls by many publishers.” 


Analyst Ken Doctor tells the paper …  


“The online share that newspapers are getting is smaller even though it's the greatest goldmine of advertising growth we've seen in a generation.”

Gannett Blog — which is not affiliated with the media company — notes something missing from recent coverage.

“Reuters doesn’t mention another, perhaps even more worrisome trend -- one that’s been a big factor in Facebook’s troubled sale of stock to the public: digital’s move to mobile. Cellphones’ smaller screens are especially challenging because they don’t display as many ads as desktop and laptop computers.”

Former ABC News president David Westin has started a company with the Associated Press and a group of newspaper companies.  He explained his strategy for pumping money back into papers on Fox Business’s “Imus in the Morning.”

“ … people say they don’t read newspapers, but an awful lot of what they get off the internet and off of social media comes from newspapers originally. And we need to make sure some of that money’s making it back to newspapers frankly so they can keep hiring reporters.”

The Oregon Business Report points out five trends it says are reshaping news.

One of those trends is the massive decline in ad revenue for print newspapers. The report says …

“It took 50 years to go from about $20 billion … to $63.5 billion … and then only 11 years to go from $63.5 billion back to about $20 billion …”

According to Reuters, the report comes on the heels of ratings agency Moody’s downgrading the U.S. newspaper industry’s outlook to “negative.”