A 12-Year-Low Hits Newspaper Industry

(MoneyWatch)  Even the most casual visitor to this blog has heard enough about what's ailing the newspaper industry to have a pretty good idea how fast this nationwide crisis is worsening. But it still is stunning to track the actual downhill trajectory of ad revenue.

Until now the one bright spot has been online ad revenue, with most newspaper sites showing strong growth. But by several different measures, online ad growth has stalled and now appears to be falling as well.

For the first half of 2008, print ad revenue was down $3.1 billion, according to the Newspaper Association of America. Q-2 figures were down 16 percent, the ninth consecutive quarter of losses. The rate of loss is accelerating.

Online ads fell by 2.4 percent in Q-2, the first negative quarter since the NAA started tracking them.

Meanwhile, the one newspaper that continues to defy all trends -- the Wall Street Journal -- has announced it will release its redesigned website on September 16th. I'll study it that day and see if the company addresses the problems on its current site, which include poor ad placements, weak navigation, and general clutter.

(Thanks to Brent Harrison for his heads-up on the online revenue dip.)