Ad Spending In Newspapers Hit $48.7 Billion In 2000.

Newspaper advertising expenditures for 2000 totaled $48.7 billion, an increase of 5.1 percent over 1999, according to preliminary estimates from the Newspaper Association of America.

National advertising continued to lead the way with a gain of 13.7 percent, reaching $7.7 billion for the year. Retail advertising was up 2.4 percent to $21.4 billion, and classified increased 5.1 percent to $19.6 billion.

“While some media are seeing slowdowns in ad spending, these numbers show respectable increases across the board for newspapers last year, particularly in national, which faced tough comparisons from the previous year,” said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm.

Within the classified category last year, recruitment advertising increased 8.6 percent to $8.7 billion, automotive gained 2.3 percent to $5 billion, real estate was up 1.6 percent to $3.2 billion and all other classified increased 4.1 percent to $2.7 billion.

For the fourth quarter of 2000, total ad spending in newspapers was $13.9 billion, up 4.1 percent over the year before. National increased 8 percent to $1.9 billion, retail grew 2.9 percent to $6.3 billion and classified gained 4 percent to $5.7 billion (see attached table).

Within the classified category in the fourth quarter, recruitment grew 4.1 percent over the same period last year to $2.4 billion, automotive gained 1 percent to $1.55 billion, real estate increased 5.8 percent to $994 million and all other classified increased 7.8 percent to $770 million.

“Despite the sharp slowdown in the economy during the final quarter of the year, advertisers continued to demonstrate that newspapers remain the mainstay of their marketing plans by increasing their advertising investment in our medium,” said NAA Vice President/Market and Business Analysis Jim Conaghan.

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NAA is a nonprofit organization representing the $57-billion newspaper industry and more than 2,000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. Most NAA members are daily newspapers, accounting for 87 percent of the U.S. daily circulation. Headquartered in Tysons Corner (Vienna, Va.), the Association focuses on six key strategic priorities that affect the newspaper industry collectively: marketing, public policy, diversity, industry development, newspaper operations and readership (added February 1999). Information about NAA and the industry may also be found at the Association’s World Wide Web site on the Internet (www.naa.org).