Gannet Company, Inc., owner of the USA Today, announced their 2010 Q2 earning report and surprisingly Automotive Advertising revenue saw a sharp increase as compared to Q2 last year.  The media company’s second quarter broadcast revenue jumped 20%, in line with the company’s forecast and rebounding from a prior-year 21% drop, and its digital segment saw a 8% increase.

Print-ad revenue dropped 6%, compared with 7.9% in the first quarter and 26% a year ago. The last time print-ad revenue grew at Gannett was the fourth quarter of 2006, but Dubow noted this was the smallest drop in three years – a statistic that partly reflects comparisons to the company’s deep slump in the depths of the recession last year.

Automotive Advertising On The Increase

Automotive advertising and employment ad revenue in the U.S. both increased more than 5%, while domestic real estate ad revenue dropped 15.5%.

Global retail ad revenue was down 6.1%, while classified was off 4%, and national U.S. advertising was down 2.7%, weighed down by continued weakness at the company’s national paper, USA Today.

Gannett reported a profit of $195.5 million, or 81 cents a share, up from $70.5 million, or 30 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding tax gains and restructuring costs, per-share earnings rose to 61 cents from 46 cents. Gannett last month said it anticipated earnings at the high end of analysts’ expectations, which at the time was as high as 58 cents. Overall revenue was down 2% to $1.37 billion, missing estimates averaging at $1.4 billion.

Brian Pasch, CEO of PCG Digital Marketing commenting on the new stated; “The jump is advertising revenue at Gannet confirms what we have been seeing with our car dealer clientele.  Automotive retailers are more confident that the economy is turning and the strongest dealers in each market are using their extra financial resources to gain market share from weaker competitors.”

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Tags: automotive ad spending, automotive advertising, automotive newspaper ads