The Postal Service says that a decline in marketing mail, like credit card offers and bulk advertisements, is responsible for most of the drop in the amount of mail sent this fiscal year. About 175 billion pieces of mail will be sent in 2009, down from 202 billion last year.
via As Internet Booms, the Postal Service Fights Back – NYTimes.com.
A graph of newspaper classified ad revenue since 1980 to last year (at bottom) shows that the industry saw a high in 2000 with about $19.6 billion. Last year, newspapers recorded $9.9 billion.
via Pew Center illustrates how Craigslist is killing newspapers | Digital Media – CNET News.
This is money that newspapers won’t be able to claw back. So where do they look to grow revenues? The total market size is quite staggering so you can’t underestimate the value there as it dies a long death, but things don’t look too good.
VSS projects that newspapers will be particularly weakened, as broadcast TV will become the largest ad medium by year-end 2008—the first time in U.S. history that newspapers have not held that position
Two (contrary) quotes from one article:
"I’m getting to the point where I feel like every answer to
every business development pitch is ‘We’re going to be
advertiser supported’," said Beth Comstock, president of
Integrated Media at NBC Universal, which this year set up a
fund to invest in media and digital companies."It’s just not going to be possible," she said at a recent
advertising conference. "There are not going to be enough
advertising dollars in the marketplace. No matter how clever we
are, no matter what the format is."
And the second:
Next year, ZenithOptimedia forecasts it to rise by 21
percent, and climb another 13 percent to $43 billion in 2009.At that point, Web advertising would represent almost 10
percent of the $495 billion spent on advertising worldwide –
yet would trail spending on newspapers, magazines, and TV."There are billion of dollars that can still move," said
Craig Lambert, Chief Digital Director of Colangelo, an
integrated marketing agency based in Darien, Connecticut.
Today, however, many Nike ads are shown only on the Internet. Wayne
Rooney, the British soccer player, is currently featured in a series of
online videos for Nike. In 2005, Nike placed a 2-minute, 46-second clip
of the Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho online, instead of on TV. The
video has had more than 17 million views on YouTube and became so well
known that some television networks like Sky Sports and the BBC showed
it in their news coverage — free.
Link.
I’ve started to collect this sort of evidence going forward:
The Intel Corporation has decided that its partners in the “Intel
inside” cooperative advertising program — which spends hundreds of
millions of dollars each year on pitches bearing the logo — ought to
accelerate their shift of ad dollars to newer media like the Internet
from older media like television and print.
