Well, it was never likely to buck the gloomy trend. Newsquest ended the week on a bum note, turning in Q4 ad sales that were 29.3 percent worse than the year before. US owner Gannett (NYSE: GCI) can’t blame currency fluctuations – that’s a sterling figure.
UK classifieds income crashed 35.3 percent from last year – thanks to 57.5 percent less money from property ads, 35.2 percent less from recruitment and 31.2 percent less from car sales. Spot the recession! In other words, the classifieds market has lost over a third in a year.
Newsquest’s sites claimed an average 5.5 million uniques, or 68 million page impressions, during the quarter. Company-wide digital income for Gannett, which has over 100 US sites including USAToday.com, was 1.4 percent higher at $169.9 million