Print-advertising sales at the US edition of The Wall Street Journal are tracking slower than their expected third-quarter ad revenue. The ad revenue in the third quarter remained almost flat, if compared with the corresponding period last year. According to the reports ad sales slipped 6.8 percent on an 11 percent decline in ad volume at the US print edition of the Journal. However, revenue increased at Barron’s, Dow Jones’s weekly investor newspaper. The decline came even with the addition of high-priced ads on the newspaper’s front page starting last fall.
According to the Newspaper Association of America, the speed of decline in advertising revenue has increased since the beginning of this year. Total print and online ad revenue in the industry was down by 4.8 percent to $10.6 billion in the first quarter from a year earlier, compared with its full-year decline in 2006 of 0.3 percent.
As a matter of fact, the advertising decline has encouraged restructuring and consolidation in the newspaper industry and it has also been the main driving force behind Dow Jones’ negotiations with News Corp. In the meanwhile, to offset weaker than expected ad sales, Dow Jones has stated that it is emphasizing expense controls and its enterprise media group and other faster-growing digital businesses. The company also informed that it isolated $55 million more in cost savings this quarter.
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