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Community papers like 'GBN' weathering storm Community newspapers like Gulf Breeze News are being impacted by the challenging economy but in a much smaller way than the industry in general, according to fourth quarter 2008 financial data collected by the trade associations Suburban Newspapers of America (SNA) and National Newspaper Association (NNA). The SNA/NNA fourth quarter financial reporting group reports a decline of only 6.6 percent in advertising revenue from the same quarter in 2007. As a point of comparison, many large companies have reported declines in excess of 20 percent. At the Gulf Breeze News, advertising revenue is down by several percentage points over the past year, but local advertisers appear to be weathering the storm fairly well. Many of Gulf Breeze News' advertisers have remained loyal to the weekly newspaper, finding that advertising rates are much more affordable than area daily papers. "We're all feeling the pinch," co-publisher Vici Papajohn said. "Gulf Breeze News is just like any other business enterprise in the city. We depend on our fellow residents just as they depend on us. We don't have the support of a corporate office like some papers do, but nor do we have their overhead. "Other papers in the area have raised their subscription and single copy prices by 40 percent or more at a time when most people are struggling to just make ends meet. We've elected to maintain our affordable prices for advertisers, subscribers and singlecopy sales because we're confident things will turn around with the economy." Advertisers also know they are reaching a relatively affluent target market when they advertise in Gulf Breeze News and Splash! Magazine. "We feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to advertise in Gulf Breeze News," said Nancy Ullman, office manager for Ullman Eye Consultants and Dr. Saul Ullman. "It is a wonderful and high-quality local paper. Advertising in Gulf Breeze News is an efficient and cost-effective way to get one's business message out in the public eye." Local newspapers have a unique opportunity to cover local news on a scale that dailies cannot match - news that cannot be obtained from national news providers. The Gulf Breeze News covers city council, county commission, school board and Island Authority meetings, as well as local happenings, schools news and sports from age 1 to 100. Hundreds of daily and weekly community newspapers, representing more than 13.35 million in circulation with annual revenues of nearly $2 billion, participated in the SNA/NNA financial reporting group for the fourth quarter. SNA President Nancy Lane said 2008's declines are clearly economy-driven. Based on four quarters of figures from the SNA reporting groups, for full year 2008 the overall decline is estimated at 3.6 percent for community papers versus double digit decreases for the industry in general. "Community papers are affected by the current economic downturn, but they are not in a crisis; they are not experiencing massive layoffs, and they are investing in the future," she said. Once again, the variance explanations are economy-driven. Community newspapers are experiencing small declines in advertising revenue mainly due to classified categories that have been hard hit by the slumping economy. In many cases, they have made up much of those losses on the retail and preprint side. Large retailers, for example, have added many community papers to their advertising buys in the last few years to increase their penetration in key markets. Reports conducted earlier this year by SNA showed a 2.7 percent decline for the first quarter of 2008 against the same quarter of 2007; a decline of 2.4 percent for the second quarter and a decline of 1.7 percent for the third quarter. Again, significantly better results than the overall industry declines reported by the Newspaper Association of America of 12.85 percent, 15.11 percent and 18.11 percent, respectively. As these results from the SNA financial reports would indicate, community newspapers are not experiencing the massive ad revenue declines that are being felt by some others in the industry. In addition, they are not reducing staff in significant ways. In fact, only half of the reporting companies had staff reductions in 2008, almost entirely through attrition. |
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