Q1 NEWSPAPER AD REVENUE OFF 28%.

When the Internet Ad Bureau reports a year-over-year decline in ad revenue for the hottest sector in the business, you know that traditional media are going to be in the dumper: last week the Newspaper Association of America said that total newspaper ad revenue in the first quarter of 2009 declined 28.2 percent when compared to the same period in 2008, to $6.6 billion.

The newspaper trade group, based in Arlington, Va., said the biggest drop came in classified, which was off 42.3 percent, year-over-year, to just under $1-1/2 billion. National was off 25.9 percent, to $1.1 billion and retail declined 23.7 percent, to $3.3 billion. Newspaper on-line revenue was down 13.4 percent, to $696.3 million.

Newspapers being newspapers, the decline in their on-line was worse than the overall on-line environment: the Internet Ad Bureau -- which contracts with the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to do on-line ad revenue research -- said last week that total Internet ad revenue dropped five percent, to $5-1/2 billion in the quarter.

Despite the decline, Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the New York City-based on-line trade group, said, "We're confident that growth will resume as the U.S. economic climate improves."

The accounting firm's David Silverman made this understatement: "Current economic conditions are clearly challenging."

As readers of this august newsletter, you already knew that newspaper ad revenue was off 28 percent, but the decline in on-line was an interesting addition.

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