Although newspapers’ online ad revenues continued to grow, the industry’s total ad expenditures dropped 7.4 percent during the third quarter of 2007, according to a report issued by the Newspaper Association of America.

The NAA said newspapers posted ad sales of $10.9 billion during the third quarter. Of that amount, spending for print ads totaled $10.1 billion, down 9 percent from the year-earlier period.

 

The bright spot was online sales, which grew by 21.1 percent, to $773 million, the NAA’s preliminary statistics indicated. The group said the increase reflects the 14th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth for online advertising since NAA began reporting online ad spending in 2004.

The continued year-over-year gains have demonstrated the importance of newspaper Web site advertising, NAA said, which now accounts for 7.1 percent of total newspaper ad spending, compared to 5.4 percent in last year’s third quarter.

Still, the uptick in digital advertising couldn’t offset the continued decline in print classified advertising, the report said. Classified advertising overall fell 17 percent to $3.4 billion, while retail declined 4.9 percent to $5.1 billion and national slid 2.5 percent, to $1.7 billion, NAA said.

Within the classified print category in the third quarter, real estate advertising fell 24.4 percent to $1 billion. Recruitment dropped 19.7 percent to $882.4 million. Automotive was down 17.7 percent to $796.6 million. All other classifieds were up 2.7 percent to $713.3 million.