Earnings: Newsquest’s Worst May Be Over

A colourful sandwichboard headline from Newsquest's Glasgow Evening Times

After the cuts, the closures, the ad declines, the worst of the publishing slump may be over for Newsquest.

Its advertising advertising revenues fell 28.7 percent during July to September, its Q3. That doesn’t sound pretty — but it’s an improvement on the April to June fall of 36.9 percent.

Newsquest’s classifieds were down 34.7 percent on the same period last year…
— job ads brought in 48.8 percent less revenue than they did in Q208
— car ads suffered a 37.4 percent drop
— property was down 30.6 percent.

There are no online revenue numbers, just traffic figures and Gannett’s declaration that Newsquest is an “internet leader” in the UK. The company attracted more than 73 million page views from 7.3 million monthly unique users in the quarter, on average.

Gannett (NYSE: GCI) doesn’t break out Newsquest earnings at all, but its heavy-duty cost cutting has had an impact: its costs in the quarter were a hefty 43.3 percent lower year on year

The publisher’s US-based parent company Gannett today revealed a 45 percent year on year drop in its reported its July to September results. Release.

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