They provide a startling counterpoint to the claims by Internet prognosticators like Forrester Research and Jupiter Media Metrix, which have projected significant losses by newspapers to online services. The first study comes from Classified Intelligence, which is affiliated with the Advanced Interactive Media Group, my consulting group. This report includes the results of a survey of print classified advertising executives at more than 60 daily newspapers in the United States. Only 6 percent said they noticed a negative impact as a result of their online employment advertising sales. The interviews also gathered information about rates for newspaper online employment services, the specific services offered by various newspapers, vendors used and other topics.
Newspapers are deluding themselves, the report says.
Print employment advertising profits at daily newspapers will probably never again be as strong as they were in 2000. Rate pressure, new technologies, lower barriers to entry and changing demographics are all making it easier for other media companies and dot-coms to steadily increase their market share in this segment, which just a few years ago was owned outright by the newspaper industry. The other study, for the World Association of Newspapers, will be released at the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Hong Kong this month. For the foreseeable future, print classified will remain a mainstay of the newspapers business and should not be neglected as management shifts attention to the Internet, WAN said in its preview. The research covered newspapers in 10 countries, all of them selling classifieds on the Internet.