The Newspaper Association of America is reporting that the sharpest decline ever in newspaper advertising revenue took place in 2007. Overall ad revenues for newspapers in the United States dropped 9.4% from the previous year, a record low. At the same time, Internet advertising saw a 19% increase in revenue, with the biggest chunk of that going to Google Inc.

As online advertising continues to grow, newspapers are feeling the squeeze, and especially newspaper classified ads are showing significant losses. Overall, print classified advertising fell 17%, and a few categories, such is real estate classifieds, fell as much as 23% in 2007.

Even national brand retail advertising — traditionally a big supporter of print media — slowed significantly last year, and experts predict that the trend will continue. Forecasts by analysts expect print advertising will continue to nosedive through 2013.

While the print media in general continues to suffer decreasing revenues, more and more newspapers are expanding their online presence. Even small town newspapers in the South and Midwest are building up ever larger web sites, and becoming more savvy about marketing and promoting their online content.

At the same time, the lines are being blurred between print media and broadcast media. For example, more and more local newspapers are including broadcast quality video reports on their web sites. It’s getting to the point where there will likely be no such thing as a print media outlet, or a broadcast media outlet, or a web media outlet. They will ALL be multi-media outlets.

There’s no doubt that things are changing quickly in the newspaper business, and that, barring some extreme unforeseen circumstance, print newspapers will continue to decline into the foreseeable future. The newspaper outlets that survive this change will be the ones that accept their role as a multimedia information and advertising service, and throw off the shackles of the traditional printing press.

In some ways, this is great news. Ecologically speaking, newspapers have always been a bad idea. The amount of trees it takes to print a few hundred thousand Sunday papers is staggering, and the amount of pollution and waste involved in the process of manufacturing paper is also sizable. For these reasons, switching over to digital, or online versions of newspapers makes a whole lot of sense, both economically and ecologically.

Of course, there will be those who miss unfolding and spreading out the Sunday paper all over the living room floor, and don’t mind the inevitable ink stains all over their fingertips. But that’s progress for you — we always have to take the good with the bad.

Related Business Directory Categories:

• Current Events
• Magazine Resources
• Printing and Publishing

• Is Craigslist Killing Local Newspapers?
• More Rumors Arise About Microsoft/Yahoo Deal
• Is Google Too Big?
• MySpace Ventures Into Online Games
• Radiohead Says “No” to Digital Copyright Protection