Annual report shows newspapers continue to hold their ground and grow advertising revenue

The Newspaper Works today released its annual The Facts About Australian Newspapers Report, which found that newspapers are becoming true multi-platform brands, and that national advertising  has achieved double digit growth.

The report presents facts and statistics about newspapers across areas including revenue, circulation, audience (including digital), product quality, fragmentation, trust, green and structural facts.

The Newspaper Works CEO, Tony Hale (pictured), said: “This report highlights the relative strength of newspapers and how newspapers have rebounded well following the GFC.

“New distribution of newspaper content is reaching more audiences thanever before, while the different newspaper platforms, print and digitaloffer complementary reader experiences. What’s more, newspapers are theleast impacted by fragmenting audiences,” Hale said.

“In just five months, for example, more than 330,000 newspaper brandapps have been downloaded, which shows that people still valuenewspapers however they are delivered.”

Among the highlights of the report:

·        Global marketing information service WARC, in itsInternational Ad Forecast 2010/11, predicts that Australia will be theonly major Western market where newspaper advertising will increase in2010, with countries including the UK , France, Germany, Canada and theUS all forecast to post declines. This is consistent with the latestCommercial Economic Advisory Service of Australia (CEASA) figures whichshow a 7.1% increase year on year from January to June.

·        A landmark report published by the OECD in June also showedthat Australian newspapers are performing more solidly than theircounterparts overseas. The report found that total newspaper revenue inAustralia slipped just 3% between 2007 and 2009, compared with falls of30% and 21% respectively in the US and the UK.

·        CEASA figures showed that newspapers reported double digitgrowth of 11.3% in national advertising in January to June 2010 vsJanuary to June2009. National advertising is now significantly higherthan pre-GFC levels.

·        In just five months this year, more than 330,000 newspaper brands had been downloaded as apps onto iPhones and iPads.

·        Audit Bureau of Circulations figures show that sales ofnewspapers in Australia have eased by less than 1% per year over thelast 10 years, compared with double digit declines in the majorEnglish-speaking markets overseas.

·        86% of Australians read a newspaper every week

·        Six of the top 10 news websites are owned by newspaper publishers

·        77% of all Australian newspapers are recycled – the highest percentage in the world.

“These are powerful facts and show that the debate on the ‘demise ofnewspapers’ has been turned on its head. It’s now no longer aboutwhether newspapers survive but how perfectly positioned newspapers areto grab a significant slice of an exciting future,” Hale said.