Advertising declines 11 percent at WSJ in quarter

Advertising at The Wall Street Journal declined by 11 percent in the third quarter, according to the transcript of its earnings conference call.

CFO Bedi Singh said the following on the call:

At The Wall Street Journal, advertising declined around 11% versus the prior year. We saw weakness in print advertising across the board, in telecom and to a lesser extent, in finance. That said, while the market remains volatile, we expect a sequential improvement in the fourth quarter driven by digital.

CEO Robert Thomson said the following on the call:

At The Journal, despite a tough national ad marketplace, we saw an increase in circulation revenues thanks in part to Make Time, the first brand campaign in 4 years. WSJ+ also continues to have traction with less churn and a disciplined approach to pricing. In other words, no deleterious discounting. WSJ digital-only subs are now over 700,000 and that total should be bolstered given that we have just unveiled a more contemporary WSJ.com. Early results from that relaunch show a significant improvement in engagement including page views, unique visitors and video plays.

Read the entire conference call transcript here.