Global Newspaper Revenue: Circulation Overtakes Advertising

2014 Print Newspaper Circulation and Ad Trends By Region

Globally, revenues from newspaper circulation exceeded advertising revenues last year for the first time this century, reports the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in its latest annual World Press Trends survey.

Marketing Charts reports of the estimated US $179 billion in circulation and advertising revenue generated last year, $92 billion derived from print and digital circulation compared with $87 billion for advertising.

The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has previously detailed a shifting revenue mix for newspapers in the US, though advertising had remained the dominant source of revenues at the time.

Although print ad spending has been on the decline in the US, newspaper ads still have a significant influence on consumers’ purchase decisions, especially when measured against their reach, according to a newly-released MarketingCharts report. In fact, newspaper ads are behind only direct mail and TV ads among paid media in stated purchase influence, per the study, which also analyzed attention to advertisers across various media.

Returning to the WAN-IFRA study, the data shows that print circulation revenues grew by 6.4% in 2014 and has increased by 16.4% over 5 years. However, print advertising spending declined by 5.2% year-over-year and by 17.5% over the 5-year period.

The report indicates a wide disparity in newspapers’ fortunes when sorting by region.

Other Findings:

• While newspapers’ digital ad revenues aren’t expected to overtake print ad revenues, they grew by 8.5% in 2015 and by nearly 60% over 5 years.
• Roughly 2.7 billion people globally read print newspapers, and more than 770 million read them on desktop digital platforms.