Newspaper publishers

Newspaper publishers recorded a year of modest growth in 2004, as revenue increases slowed and the industry profit margin held steady. Community and weekly newspapers continued to grow faster than their daily counterparts, expanding advertising revenues at twice the rate registered by dailies.

Newspaper publishing industry revenues rose by 3.2% to $5.0 billion in 2004, slightly lower than the 4.5% increase in revenues in 2003. Advertising revenue, the source of nearly three quarters of industry revenues, rose 4.0% to $3.5 billion. One factor contributing to this increase was strong growth for community and weekly papers.

Daily newspapers earned $2.6 billion in advertising revenues compared to $920 million for community and weekly papers. Although community and weekly papers tend to be smaller operations than the dailies, their advertising revenue grew faster in 2004 and in each of the three previous years. Since 2000, community newspapers and weekly newspapers have enjoyed advertising revenue growth of 20% compared to a 2% increase for daily newspapers.

Publishers saw large increases in circulation revenues in 2003 and 2004, assisted in part by changes in accounting practices. Since 2003, a number of newspaper publishers have switched from reporting circulation revenues net of distribution expenses, to reporting full circulation revenues and higher distribution expenses. Circulation revenue was $830 million in 2004 compared to $780 million in 2003, an increase of 6.4%.

Newspaper publishers saw a 3.4% increase in operating expenses for 2004, bringing total operating expenses to $4.3 billion. Roughly 41% of operating expenses were paid to employees in salaries, wages, and benefits, for a total of $1.8 billion. This was an increase of 3.6% from 2003.

Operating profit for the industry remained stable from 2003 to 2004 at 14.9%.

Available on CANSIM: table 361-0003.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 4710.

For more information about the survey, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Allison Bone (613-951-3010; fax: 613-951-6696; allison.bone@statcan.gc.ca), Service Industries Division.