More red ink for US newspapers in latest survey

US newspapers suffered further revenue declines in 2013, seeing only mixed success in a transition to digital, according to industry figures.
Total newspaper industry revenue amounted to USD 37.59 billion in 2013, a 2.6 per cent drop from USD 38.60 billion in 2012, according to a report released on Friday by the Newspaper Association of America.
In one positive sign, the data showed a 3.7 per cent increase in circulation revenues to USD 10.87 billion, helped by digital subscriptions and "paywalls."
The figures showed revenue from all digital sources including advertising, circulation and marketing, rose 5.8 per cent and accounted for 12 per cent of total industry revenue.

But newspapers continued to see declines in print advertising, which has long been their most important revenue source.
Advertising in the traditional printed daily and Sunday newspaper decreased 8.6 per cent to USD 17.3 billion. Digital advertising only partly offset that, rising 1.5 per cent to USD 3.4 billion.

Poynter Institute researcher Rick Edmonds said the overall performance of the industry was the best since 2006.
But Edmonds noted that because the trade association made changes in how it calculates figures, using different sources of revenue in the computation, "total industry revenue figures for the last two years cannot meaningfully be compared to those for earlier years."

"Though digital ad revenue gains again failed to make up for print revenue losses, there was mildly encouraging news on that front," Edmonds said in a blog post.
"Despite continued downward pressure on prices and tough competition from digital giants with virtually no news operations, the industry eked out a gain.