How has the economy affected your company’s revenues over the last fiscal year?

Cost reduction is a key strategy for most media companies in the time after the economic downturn. On the top of the list of cost reductions is production, with 44.2 percent of the respondents saying so; followed by office space, 37.5 percent; printing, 35.8 percent; administration, 35 percent; materials, 30 percent; distribution, 29.2 percent; and content generation, including journalist positions, at 26.7 percent.

The economy has affected respondents’ companies in significantly different ways. Compared to the years immediately following the economic crisis, it appears many media companies are experiencing a slow but steady recovery. More than half have reported either no change or an increase in overall revenue. However, more than half report declines in both print circulation and print advertising revenues. Meanwhile, almost three-quarters of the respondents report an increase in website revenues, while more than half report an increase in e-commerce sales in the last fiscal year.

The data set is a part of a collection of 500 revenue and usership trends in mobile, social, Internet, tablet, video and other digital categories, published in the 200-page Global Digital Media Trendbook 2013. GDMT, in its eight year, is to be published by World Newsmedia Network, a not-for-profit media research company, in September 2013. To subscribe to the PDF report and/or the tablet edition, go to www.wnmn.org, or contact mstone@wnmn.org.