THE fall in advertising at Australian metropolitan daily newspapers in recent months may be starting to level off, with new figures showing Fairfax Media's classified page ad volumes in June recorded their lowest rate of decline since late last year.
The trend comes as some forecasts suggest the worst could be over for the economy.
Goldman Sachs JBWere's monthly "page count", which monitors ad volumes for Fairfax's main metropolitan daily newspapers, shows a year-on-year decline of 34 per cent for June.
This compares with a 41 per cent classified decline in May and monthly falls of between 40 per cent and 51 per cent earlier this year.
Goldman's chief media analyst, Christian Guerra, indicated that the downward trend in Fairfax's classified advertising volumes had moderated.
"Our page count for June has revealed that year-on-year declines in total pages and pages of classifieds continue," he said.
"However, assisted by easing year-on-year comparables, the rate of decline has clearly stabilised."
The trend appears to support a call made by Mr Guerra late in May when he upgraded his recommendations on several local media stocks because of an "increasingly optimistic view" of the economy and, ultimately, of the ad market.
Mr Guerra had been bearish about the media sector throughout last year and much of this year.
The biggest sign of the moderating declines in the ad market has come at Fairfax's two flagship metropolitan dailies, Melbourne's The Age and the The Sydney Morning Herald.
The Age recorded a 35 per cent fall in its page count for June, compared with 39 per cent in May and 55 per cent in March-April. Classified volumes at the Herald also fell at a declining rate of 30 per cent in June, compared with 37 per cent in May and 45 per cent in March-April.
Goldman Sachs said Fairfax would "re-rate", along with its media peers, into a "sustained ad market check recovery".
Source: The Australian
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