Newspapers battle falling advertising

In 1950, with television sets in only 9 per cent of homes, a UK street of 100 houses could be relied on to buy 140 newspapers a day and 220 on Sunday. In 2010, when each of those houses contains an average of 2.6 TVs, the same street bought just 40 papers a day, Monday to Sunday.

Some advertising revenues fled to TV as it developed in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, but not in such great numbers as to ruin newspapers which could still rely on huge circulation sales income. According to the AA/Warc Expenditure Report, in 1998, the first year it recorded online advertising spend, advertisers spent £2.4bn ($3.8bn) buying space in newspapers, at today’s prices, and £19.4m online. It projects that by 2012, they will spend £4.7bn online and £1.7bn in newspapers.