Newspaper advertising took a 19.26% fall in the third quarter of 2008 off the back of the hemorrhaging classified market.
The 19.26% overall fall is worse than the previous record of a 16.07% drop in the second quarter of 2008 (we previously reported 14% , so the figure may have been revised).
Driving the rapid fall in newspaper advertising is the coming death of the classified market, which saw a 30.85% fall, driven by recruitment classified sales dropping 43.6% to $497.5 million, real estate classifieds down 38.6% to $629.3 million, and automotive down 29.2% to $563 million.
National and Retail advertising dropped 18.42% and 11.72% respectively.
Online offered more bad news, dropping 3% year on year.
The interesting part with the stats is the decline coming in a quarter that should have had a boost due to election advertising. National advertising over the last three election cycles (for the third quarter) increased sales by 18% (96), 14.5% (00) and 8.24% (04).
Full figures are available from the Newspaper Association of America here and Alan Mutter has more here .
