Newspaper Web Ad Spending Up 20 Percent in Q2

Newspaper Web ad growth keeps chuggin’ along. The Newspaper Association of America estimates Web ad spending on paper sites rose nearly 20 percent in Q2 2007 over the same period last year. According to an NAA press release, online newspaper site ad expenditures were up 19.3 percent to $796 million in Q2. Spending on paper sites “accounts for seven percent of total newspaper ad spending, compared to 5.4 percent in last year’s second quarter,” it continued.

Of course, that percentage will have to grow much more and at a much more rapid pace to counteract the ongoing drop in print readership and ad revenues.

More from the NAA:
Total advertising expenditures at newspaper companies were $11.3 billion for the second quarter of 2007, an 8.6 percent decrease from the same period a year earlier. Spending for print ads in newspapers totaled $10.5 billion, down 10.2 percent versus the same period a year earlier.

Among the major print components in the second quarter, classified advertising fell 16.4 percent to $3.4 billion. Retail declined 6.4 percent to $5.2 billion and national was down 7.9 percent, coming in at $1.8 billion.