White said display advertising has been strong. But classified advertising has softened after four years of double-digit increases. Some car dealers have been going through a rough time for the past six weeks or so. So we've seen some pulling back. Clearly, the more a media outlet relied on national advertising, the more its sales declined in the first quarter.
Broadcasters get the most national advertising.
The others took hits. He said sales at the six Latham stations he runs are off 8 to 10 percent from a year ago. But no growth. John Kelly, president of radio station operator Albany Broadcasting Co. Inc. in Latham, said the drop in advertising revenue can be tied in part to the shakeout among dot-coms. Although Capital Region stations never got the amount of dot-com advertising that stations in New York City got, they did get the runoff.