Newspaper Publishers Move to Digital Advertising

Newspapers are struggling in the United States and people do not have to look far to find out why this is happening. Newspapers began struggling when the internet exploded with news websites, social media websites, and blogs in the early 2000s. Newspapers started struggling even more when smartphones were released, because people on the go can access news from their phone at any time of the day. Since newspapers were struggling, their advertising sales also began to struggle, which forced the newspaper publishers to hit the internet in an effort to keep their heads above water.

“The whole industry is looking to digital advertising to recover its fortunes. The future is digital, not print,” Benchmark analyst Edward Atorino told Reuters.

McClatchy, the publisher of The Miami Herald and the Sacramento Bee, is expecting its digital ad revenue to climb above $190 million. For McClatchy, digital advertising makes up about 20 percent of its advertising revenue.

“As we look ahead to 2012, we have limited visibility but will work hard to maintain our ad revenue momentum. We’re adding digital sales staff and expanding our sales training,” McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt said at a UBS Conference in New York.

McClatchy has also invested in Classified Ventures, which owns the websites of Cars.com and Apartments.com and job site CareerBuilder.

“We are especially pleased with the performance of our Internet investments — these companies provide important products to our newspaper websites and are strategic partners in our digital success,” Pruitt said.

The Tampa Tribune and the Winston-Salem Journal are published by Media General. Media General also owns WFLA-TV and expects its revenue from local media websites to increase by 15 percent to around $33 million in 2011.

Media General acquires six percent of its total revenue from digital media and is expecting its internet partnership revenue to grow by 12 percent to $11.6 million in 2011.

“As our business continues its shift to digital, we will continue to respond to the ongoing changes in the packaging and delivery of news and information by creating new revenue streams from multiple sources, including increased content revenues,” Media General CEO Marshall Morton said at the conference.

The company of Media General estimated that its 2012 capital expenditures will hit $23-$25 million. The reason for the growth in revenue will be the advertising for the Super Bowl, the Presidential election, and the Summer Olympics. The company was created before the Civil War, and has announced that it will start charging for online local content from seven of its papers before 2011 ends.

The company also announced that it will finish its plans for The Tampa Tribune, which has struggled over the past five years in a rough Florida economy. The final plans could result in the loss of jobs at the paper.

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