Newspapers Dying Sooner Than Expected

Ad spend in digital advertising will overtake newspapers, globally, this year itself as opposed to 2013, said media communications agency Carat in its latest report. According to Carat, digital media continues to grow materially ahead of all the other media.Moreover, the trend of audiences moving online shows no sign of slowing down, "as demand for online content and the proliferation of internet and mobile access increases," Jerry Buhlmann, chief executive of Aegis Group, said.Print giants such as the Financial Times has already seen the switch with its digital assets overtaking print in terms of subscriptions. For the first time in its history, the company said its digital subscription has surpassed its daily print circulation.Fairfax Media, the publisher of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia, too has written down the value of its Australian and New Zealand newspapers by approximately US$2.6 billion. It said its ad revenue in the first weeks of the new financial year were 10% lower than for the same period in 2011.Meanwhile, Carat has lowered its predicted APAC ad spend growth this year to 6.8%, from 8.7% as predicted in March 2012. It also revised the APAC forecast for 2013 to 6.5%, down from the previously stated figure of 8.6%.Nick Waters, CEO Aegis Media Asia Pacific, said ad spend will continues to grow in most Asia Pacific markets but at a slower rate than predicted six months ago."The anaemic recovery in the US and ongoing eurozone crisis has dampened Asian economies and consumer sentiment," he said."The reduced pace of growth in China is now creating further restraint across the region. We see these effects continuing into next year so anticipate somewhat slower growth in 2013."Global ad spend, according to Carat, too have been downgraded to 5.0%, from 6.0% as predicted in March 2012 while the forecast for 2013 has been revised to 5.3%, down from the previously predicted 5.8%.