• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 25, 2013

2013 isn’t bringing any respite for traditional media, with radio and newspaper print advertising revenues continuing to drop. There was a wide range of performance among different types of media, with radio and newspaper results coming in worse than average.

Overall, advertising revenue was basically flat -- with a 0.1% decline from the first quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2013, to $30.2 billion, per Kantar Media.
 
Radio advertising declined 1.7% in the first quarter of the year -- reflecting both the absence of political ad spending and weakness in local advertising, long the medium’s mainstay. Local ad revenues were down 1%, per Kantar, while network radio revenues tumbled 15.2%.

The only bright spot was national spot radio, which increased 5.7% in the first quarter.
 
Newspaper ad revenues fell 4% in the first quarter, with a 9.2% drop in national newspapers and a 3.3% drop in local newspapers. Elsewhere in the print world, magazines eked out a modest 0.6% increase, due mostly to a 1.8% increase in consumer magazines, which benefited from higher spending by CPG companies, while business-to-business ad revenues fell 4.1% and local mags declined 5.7%.

Outdoor advertising revenues also increased in the first quarter, with a 4.3% increase.
 
The only real bright spot was Hispanic media, which bucked the overall trend.

The real standout in the first quarter were Hispanic media of all types: Hispanic newspapers outperformed their mainstream peers with a 1.4% increase, while Hispanic magazines saw ad revenues jump 12%, and Spanish-language TV soared 13.5% .