Certified Audit of Circulations (CAC) was created in 1956 to level the field for free community publications, which for the purpose of objectivity, required a member-led, not-for-profit circulation auditing forum. Although CAC has grown to serve a diverse membership that includes paid and free publications, community newspapers remain at the heart of our organization.
“Community newspapers are doing well because they provide much needed hyper-local news and advertising,” said SNA President Nancy Lane. “Advertisers, especially at the community level, are reaching an engaged audience that no other medium can effectively serve.”
After experiencing a growth year in 2007, and in contrast to overall industry financial headlines, community newspapers are not experiencing the massive ad revenue declines, according to findings in the second quarter report.
“Most of our newspapers also are not overly-reliant on classified or national advertising and this serves them well during this current economic downturn,” Lane said.
John Janedis, senior analyst for Wachovia Equity Research, predicts that the overall industry advertising revenues will be under prior year for the second quarter of 2008 by about 13.4%. He calls it “one of the worst quarters in industry history.”
“Community newspapers are a stark contrast in a closer financial analysis,” explains Lane in advance of today’s co-hosted call with Wachovia Bank.
“We encourage as many as possible to listen in and learn about the important distinctions between the various segments of the newspaper industry,” said Lane, who sees variance explanations provided by the SNA reporting group. The explanations reveal that declines are related to the economy and are not a shift to other media, she said.
Community newspapers remain the sweet spot of the industry with only a slight downturn in advertising revenues, according to second quarter 2008 financial data collected by the trade association — Suburban Newspapers of America (SNA). The SNA financial reporting group reports total ad revenue at $482 million, a 2.4% decline from the same quarter in 2007.