Wednesday 1 June 2011

The C@W Real Economy Index: The End ?

For the past three years we have been tracking the year-on-year decline in advertising space (by page area) in local trade directories and, yes, it's that time of year again !

The results are in: and the Thomson local for Croydon has declined by ... a further 29.2% ! This makes for a cumulative 62% decline over 3 years - causing Thomsons to take the dramatic step of reducing the format to hand-book size this time, instead of just thinning it down as before.

It's pretty clear, of course, that most printed media are going the way of the dinosaur (see all newspapers) so there may not be too much to be read into it. Indeed, this may well be the last time we bother to count the column-inches on behalf of our loyal readership (Kev and Doris Bonkers).

The end of an era. All things must pass, eh ?



ND

4 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

Have been in surgery and one of the main complaints is the bus time tables. No longer do councils print the entire timetable for all routes, just the local service.

Silver surfers are angry as they want to know regional routes.

That's free bus travel for you. The pensioners are on day trips to Devon and fishing in Cumbria and farm shows in Kent.

All free. And they are angry that the information on how to do it isn't available in every village hall in the land.

Anonymous said...

This year's Sheffield Yellow Pages is roughly A5 size - probably about 9" x 7". It's been slimming down since 2007 but this jump is really quite noticeable.

I've barely gave the wrapping a glance before throwing it away, but I think it tried to sell the change as being for my benefit ("new handy size")...

James Higham said...

What replaces it?

Timbo614 said...

JH: Google/Internet search.

I'm sure all the bus timetables will be on-line somewhere.