The financial bloodletting in the fading US newspaper industry seems to have staunched in 2012, with analogue print ad revenues continuing their long fall and online ad revenues rising weakly. But the continuing pressure seems to have forced the industry to rethink the amount of information it releases as it tries to work out how its travelling.

New estimates prepared on the basis of information from 17 newspaper groups in the US give the impression that while still dire, the financial health of the US newspaper industry seems to be stabilising, with some $US6 billion in new sources of income revealed for the first time (or more clearly identified revenue attributed to other sources).

At the same time, circulation revenues are now being boosted by small but rising contributions from revenue generated by the increasing number of paywalls (some 400 at last count, according to this new report). The objective of the new approach was seen in this comment from the report:

“The numbers portray an industry that, faced with significant disruption in the last decade, has begun to measurably change its essential revenue model. That has begun by turning more to circulation, to digital, and to developing new revenue sources.”

The report says the 17 companies represent around “40% of the weekday print circulation in the United States, nearly 330 papers and close to half of all US newspaper media revenue”. One of the report’s authors, Tom Rosenstiel, explained to Crikey yesterday the new reports contained projections — instead of actual figures, as in the past — that “draw from a larger number of companies and papers than has been the case in a number of years. Rather than an attempt at spin, indeed, the effort, which took several months, required that participating papers disclose more data than ever before … This was an effort to capture revenue categories that, because they were new, the industry had not been collecting.”

The report estimates that US newspapers now get at least $US 10 billion a year (and probably a bit more, because paywall revenues seem to be very hard to identify) in digital revenues. That’s still way short of the falling (but still substantial) $US18.9 billion in print ad revenues. And some papers, such as The New York Times, are getting more revenue from circulation (including the paywall) than they are from analogue print ads, a big turnaround in the past five years.

The new report estimated the fall in the industry’s total revenue in 2012 at just 2% to US$38.6 billion from US$39.5 billion in 2011. Online subscriptions helped circulation revenue rise by 5% to US$10.4 billion, the first rise since 2003. That’s a much better look than the previous concentration on the double-digital falls in print ad revenues from the previous way of reporting the data, which now contains projected figures in addition to digital revenue sources.

The report estimates that of the $US38.6 billion in total revenue in 2012, $US18.9 billion came from print advertising, $US3.4 billion from digital advertising, $US2.9 billion from advertising from direct marketing/niche and non-daily publications, $US10.4 billion from circulation and $US3 billion from new revenue sources. (These do not include revenue from weekly papers not owned by daily newspaper companies, according to the association’s report.)

The most important figure in that $US38.6 billion estimate is the $US18.9 billion in print advertising revenues, down $US2.7 billion, or around 12.5%, from US$21.692 billion in 2011. The digital advertising was up from the $US3.25 billion for 2011. So at best digital advertising rose by around $150 million for the year, but analogue print ad revenues fell $US2.7 billion.

The online subscriptions from the 400 or so paywalls boosted overall circulation revenue to $US10.4 billion, just above the $US10.3 billion in 2007, but short of the $US11.2 billion from 2003, when the overwhelming majority of the money came from much higher sales of papers. The good old days, in some respects, even if they were only nine years ago.

This report makes you wonder if Australian newspaper groups such as Fairfax Media, APN and News Ltd, which are less advanced generally in paywalls and identifying new revenue areas, might have something to consider.