Source: US Census Bureau: Quarterly Services Survey

We haven’t looked at publishing and advertising revenues in a while, but the Q4 2024 Quarterly Services Report was just released, so we thought we’d have a look at how the creative markets have been faring.

And, well, generally speaking, not so hot.

Publishing had a rough time during the pandemic, although all three publishing segments—especially books—saw a rebound afterwards, with a leveling off as revenues returned to trend.

On an annualized basis, since 2004, newspaper publishing revenues have been plummeting—even by 2020 revenues had dropped by more than $50 billion. 2024 saw them continue on a slight downward trend (these figures are adjusted for inflation, natch). Newspaper revenues were down 1% from Q3 to Q4 and down 4% from Q1 to Q4.

Periodical publishers aren’t in much better shape; since 2004, revenues have been in a kind “punctuated equilibrium,” with periods of relative flatness followed by steep declines, the first likely caused by the Great Recession, with the second in 2014–2015 likely the result of advertisers adjusting their media spending from publications to social media, streaming services, and other online initiatives. They saw a less dramatic drop than the other segments during the pandemic (by then, the damage had been done) and since the pandemic, revenues have been pretty flat if not down slightly. Over the course of 2024, revenues were down 1% from Q3 to Q4 and down 2% from Q1 to Q4.

Book publishing revenues also declined steadily over the past 20 years, but have also been pretty flat since the pandemic. Over the course of 2024, book publishing revenues were essentially unchanged, although down 1% from Q3 to Q4.

Advertising is a whole other matter. Advertising revenues had flattened out over the course of the 2010s, which reflected the fact that revenues for the venues (as it were) that used to feature a lot of advertising—periodicals and newspapers—have dropped (as we just saw), in turn indicative of a continued shift to non-print advertising, but also other kinds of marketing initiatives than what we think of as “advertising.” For example, content marketing, social media and other forms of digital marketing, and smarter use and negotiation of cable and TV, which are still clinging to life (if you have ever tried to cancel a Spectrum account you know it’s like trying to get a ball out of a dog’s mouth). Streaming services have also upped their reliance on advertising, with more ad-based tiers and even stealthily converting ad-free tiers to ad-based (looking at you, Netflix).

That said, it’s possible streaming has hit a wall, with many services—Netflix, to name one—tracking slower growth. Those ad-based service tiers have not been a success, and people remain happy to pay a premium to not watch ads. However, as streamers continue to raise subscription fees (often without warning), we suspect people will start reevaluating the services they subscribe to. There is no shortage of advertising on other platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, and other services that have both ad-supported (free) and premium (ad-free) options. There are becoming precious few places where there is no advertising—and very little of it actually compelling.