June Sporting Events Fail To Boost U.K. Newspaper Industry

The London Games and Euro 2012 "failed to give national newspapers the expected boost in advertising spend," with media buying network ZenithOptimedia slashing more than £100M ($161M) from its forecast for the overall U.K. press market this year, according to Mark Sweney of the London GUARDIAN. In June, Zenith expected the total U.K. newspaper market to contract by a relatively resilient 1.7% year on year in '12. However, it has now taken a much more bleak position and "expects a fall of 5.8%." Zenith also expected the national newspaper market to rise 1% -- thanks to events including the Olympics and Euro 2012 -- which has now been "downgraded to a 5% year-on-year ad revenue fall." ZenithOptimedia Worldwide Head of Forecasting Jonathan Barnard said, "There was a failure of the huge investment in the Olympics and Euro football to translate into ad revenue spend. There were some notable circulation increases, and revenue from that, but not a significant increase in ad spend" (GUARDIAN, 10/1).