At Johnston Press last year, regional property advertising declined by 32%. The decline at Trinity Mirror was 27%.
During the course of the year, the two companies saw somewhere in the region of £40m-worth of property-related advertising disappear into thin air.
Putting a number on the deficit in property-related advertising at Northcliffe and Newsquest is more difficult. (Neither company releases specific numbers). Archant remains tight-lipped, too.
Related
But it certainly seems possible that the collapse of the property market deprived the local press of £100m in ad revenues during 2008.
Where did it go? And more importantly: will it ever come back?
It’s tempting to suggest that £100m in ad revenues simply disappeared. But that’s not quite the whole story, as the slide reproduced here from Rightmove’s 2008 results presentation in February suggests.
Content from our partners
Doubless, some of that £100m ended up with Rightmove. The pure-play property site expanded its revenues by 31% to £74m during 2008.
Last week, Rightmove issued an update to investors which suggested that the company is ‘trading ahead of the Board’s expectations’and delivering a YOY increase in the average revenue generated per advertiser.
This at a time when the regionals are reporting YOY declines of 50%+ in print-based classified property revenues.
It’s certainly true that the regionals have put up some resistance to Rightmove. During 2006, DMGT purchased Primelocation, which now ranks as the UK’s second-largest property site. DMGT also owns Findaproperty.com, the UK’s fourth-largest property site.
But at £88m, the classified digital revenues generated by DMGT across jobs, property, motors and dating barely outstripped what Rightmove generated through property-related advertising alone in 2008.
Elsewhere, Trinity Mirror reported that property ads accounted for 19% of its £38m in digital revenues during 2008. That’s around £7.2m.
Will that £100m of classified property revenue return to print? No doubt some of it will. But the downturn will hammer print-based yields and volumes -– permanently.
Meanwhile, on the web, the economics of winner-takes-all continue to play out. The problem for journalists is that the emerging winner in digital property classifieds isn’t a publisher of regional newspapers.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
