• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, November 21, 2012

The second half of the year isn’t bringing any relief to the newspaper industry, with total advertising revenues falling 5.1% from $5.56 billion in the third quarter of 2011 to $5.27 billion in the third quarter of 2012.
 
Revenue declines were spread across all the major newspaper ad categories. National advertising fell 10.4% from $823 million to $738 million, retail was down 6% from $2.8 billion to $2.64 billion, and classifieds slipped 4.8% from $1.2 billion to $1.14 billion.

As in previous quarters, online ad revenues posted modest growth with a 3.6% increase from $733 million to $759 million.
 
For the year to date, total newspaper ad revenues fell 6.1% from $17.1 billion in the first nine months of 2011 to $16 billion. For the same period, national revenues are down 10.5% from $2.7 billion to $2.4 billion, retail fell 6.6% from $8.4 billion to $7.88 billion, and classifieds dipped 7.5% from $3.6 billion to $3.3 billion.
 
This is the 25th straight quarter of ad revenue declines, according to the NAA. From 2006-2011, total newspaper ad revenues plunged 51.5% from $49.3 billion to $23.9 billion.

Online revenues continue to be a relatively small part of the overall business, representing 14.4% of total newspaper ad revenues in the third quarter of 2012. That’s up from 13.2% in the third quarter of 2011.

The growth rate for newspaper online revenues also remain lower than for the Internet overall. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, total online revenues increased 14% in the first half of 2012, compared to a roughly 2% growth rate for newspapers’ digital properties.