Flop of the week: Marked slump in the advertising market

At the start of the year, companies and organizations once again cut back on advertising and placed fewer advertisements in Swiss print media. Advertising revenues in the press fell by 17.7 percent compared to January 2008 and still amounted to CHF 123.1 million, according to statistics from Wemf für Werbemedienforschung. In terms of media type, business and financial titles suffered the most: Advertising revenues slumped by 54.4 percent to CHF 2.8 million. According to Wemf, the slightly lower number of issues (58 instead of 62) would only account for a drop of a few percent. The rest is probably due to the financial crisis. At CHF 79 million, the daily press recorded 16.8 percent lower revenues and the Sunday press suffered a 28.8 percent drop in net advertising revenues to CHF 10.7 million. The specialist media were down by 8.2 percent and the general press by 5.5 percent.