Newspapers Stabilize; Industry Still 'Moody'

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Advertising revenues in the newspaper industry may rebound in 2011, according to Moody's Investor Services, which cautioned that long-term problems plaguing the industry could darken the forecast.

Moody's, a credit agency firm, anticipates newspaper advertising may continue to decline by 5 percent to 10 percent in 2010, but could level off in 2011 and possibly even increase 2 percent.  Declining revenues, decreased circulation, and  shutdowns have dogged the industry over the past year-and-a-half and caused Moody's to rate newspapers at the junk level.

The mildly positive outlook by Moody's was tempered by the expectation that advertisers will continue to defect from newspapers to other media, such as the Internet.