Newspaper ad sales hit 25-year low in 2010

While ad sales rose in every other mass medium in 2010, newspaper revenues plunged to the lowest point since 1985, falling to nearly half of the all-time high of $49.4 billion achieved just five years earlier.

Combined print and online sales at newspapers slid 6.3% in 2010 to $25.8 billion, according to end-of-year statistics released yesterday by the Newspaper Association of America, the industry’s principal trade association. The last time sales were this low was 1985, when newspaper ad revenues were $25.2 billion, an amount that, adjusted for inflation, would be equal to $49.6 billion in today’s dollars. As the economy struggled out of the worst recession in a generation, newspapers were the only traditional advertising medium to suffer a sales setback in 2010. Instead of rebounding like the other media, newspapers extended what has proven to be an unprecedented five-year decline in ad sales.