Newspaper ad sales drop 28% first quarter

Newspaper ad sales dropped by an 28.28% in the first quarter of 2009, a deep plunge that represents a loss of more than $2.6 billion in ad revenue compared year-over-year and the sharpest decline in history. This equates to a loss of more than $4.5 billion in ad sales in just three years if you only take into account the first quarter - the rest of the year promises to be even worse.

Classified advertising represents the largest loss. Compared to the first quarter of last year, revenue from all types of classified ads fell 42,32% to less than $1.5 billion. Considering the fact that total classifieds ad sales topped $4 billion back in 2001 and were still at almost $3.4 billion in the first quarter of 2007, that has got to hurt. The biggest losers in classifieds: Recruitment (-67.39%), Real Estate (-45.55%) and Automotive (-43.42%).