Global newspaper sales inch up in 2008

BARCELONA, Spain, May 27: Predictions that newspapers will vanish to make way for the Internet are wrong as global sales inched up in 2008, the head of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) said Wednesday. [break]



Paid circulation grew 1.3 percent worldwide last year, taking global sales of newspapers to an average of 539 million copies daily, Gavin O´Reilly said at the opening of a two-day WAN conference in Barcelona.



Sales growth in Africa, Latin America and Asia -- which is home to the world´s three largest markets, China, India and Japan -- offset declines in Europe and the United States, O´Reilly said.



If the 40 million copies of free newspapers which were distributed daily around the world last year are taken into account, total circulation rose 1.6 percent in 2008, according to preliminary WAN figures.



O´Reilly said newspapers faced a "very difficult" period due to the global economic downturn and the rise of the Internet but it was a "mistake" for commentators to predict the death of the dailies as the sector "continues to grow."



Advertising revenues in daily newspapers fell by about 5.0 percent last year and the drop should be even deeper in 2009 but he predicted the sector would "rebound" once the global economic downturn has passed.



Print media continued to absorb 37 percent of advertising revenues compared to just 10 percent by the Internet, most of it on search engines Google and Yahoo, he said.



O´Reilly is the CEO of Independent News and Media, the largest press group in Ireland and South Africa, in addition to president of WAN, which groups some 18,000 newspapers from around the world.



Several US newspaper groups have declared bankruptcy in recent months among them the Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun.



Two major US dailies, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Rocky Mountain News, have shut down in the past few months, and dozens of others are threatened.



But in other markets like Asia where a growing middle class is boosting the market for daily newspapers, the print media continues to thrive.



The health of the sector in the region was underscored earlier this month when the Wall Street Journal began printing an Asian edition of the business newspaper in India, the world´s second-most populous nation.

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