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Print Classifieds Merely a Memory by 2020

Classified advertising will likely vanish from print newspapers by 2020, said Alan Rusbridger of the Daily Guardian, at a panel for the Society of Editors in the U.K. last week.

Classified advertising faces harsh competition from the web, particularly from job search sites, material goods destinations such as eBay and Overstock, and free classified sites like Craigslist, writes MediaPost. Print advertising as a whole is declining by roughly 9 percent a year, while online advertising is increasing by 50 percent per year in the U.K., Rusbridger pointed out.

Some, like Gary Kromer, director of research for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, believe that 2020 is a conservative estimate. However, that doesn’t mean that newspapers stand to lose all the revenue generated from print classifieds. Many newspaper companies, such as Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune - which have purchased job, shopping and search sites - are finding smart ways of fighting back.

Kromer believes that the newspaper industry can weather the transition, but stresses that they must have “the financial support to do that successfully.”

That comment may have been a veiled jab at large newspaper corporations, which have been slashing costs in order to deal with falling circulations and ad revenue decreases, and to pacify Wall Street.