An OECD report into the international newspaper market has named the UK as the second worst performing market between 2007 and 2009 – beaten only by the US.
In that time the UK industry suffered a drop of 20%, outpaced only by the US market which contracted a precipitous 30%.
Mindful of the scary figures the OECD have now named 2009 as ‘the worst year for newspapers’ since they began measuring readership levels with job losses intensifying, particularly in the US, UK, Netherlands and Spain.
Striking a note of caution however the OECD state: “However, large country-by-country and title-by-title differences and the data currently do not lend themselves to make the case for “the death of the newspaper”, in particular if non-OECD countries and potential positive effects of the economic recovery are taken into account.”