Going down the tubes!

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Watch out, Olympian, if you hadn't already realized it, we AREN'T buying you! This article unfortunately doesn't explain a basic fact about there not being any value to buying/reading content in papers like The Zero. With no proofreading and no writers with good writing skills, why should we?

Grim numbers for newspapers, magazines

By Joe Pompeo. Thu Jun 2, 4:06 pm ET

Print publishers no doubt cringed Wednesday as the latest doomsday statistics about their industry were released.

U.S. newspaper advertising revenue fell 7 percent in the first quarter of 2011, according to the Newspaper Association of America, bringing sales revenue to its lowest point in nearly three decades. A 5 percent increase in online ad revenue for legacy print publications was not enough to offset the 11.4 percent decline on the print side of the ledger. Combined advertising revenue for the quarter was $5.6 billion, versus roughly $6 billion during the same period a year earlier. You can view a spreadsheet with the results here.

Still, the Newspaper Association strained to identify a silver lining in all the gloomy numbers, arguing that the industry's long-term transition to digital platforms is proceeding nicely.

"The strong growth in newspaper online ad revenues ... reinforces the continuing strength of our medium's digital transition," said NAA president and CEO John F. Sturm in a statement. "As newspaper websites and mobile applications continue to engage key demographics and attract nearly two-thirds of all Internet users ... newspaper advertising's digital component is poised to advance its share of the market.

Other observers aren't buying such sunny appraisals, however.

"Newspapers now appear to be entering the sixth year of an unprecedented collapse that has vaporized half of their principal revenues since 2006," writes industry analyst Alan D. Mutter. "Tumbling ad sales are reducing the resources and, thus, the time that publishers have to reinvent their franchises to meet the expectations of modern consumers and advertisers."

Magazines likewise got a bit of bad news today. A new report from research and data firm MagNet showed that overall newsstand sales for magazines in the first quarter of 2011 slid 6 percent, from $1.04 billion to $987 million.
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