Newspaper Print Ad Sales Should Bottom Out in 2009, Study Predicts

A new study shows that newspaper advertising sales are likely to bottom out after four straight years of decline in 2009, but they aren’t headed back to where they used to be, reports Alan Mutter on his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur.

In what passes nowadays for an upbeat take on the newspaper industry from an independent observer, the Virginia-based market research firm [Borrell Associates] boldly predicts that print advertising sales for the nation’s 15,000 daily and weekly papers will bottom out at $35.9 billion in 2009 after peaking at $57.3 million as recently as 2005.

Borrell forecasts a 2.4% sales rebound in 2010 to $36.8 billion and modest annual gains to take sales to $39.0 billion by 2014. With the over-all size of the national advertising pie likely to shrink in the next five years, Borrell believes newspapers could regain a 15.9% share of the advertising market in 2014 vs. 14.4% in 2009.