Selling news and advertising space: The economics of Dutch newspapers

Summary This article presents an analysis of developments over the period 1968–1991 on both the reader and advertising markets of Dutch newspapers. We are interested in the characteristics of both markets and in the interactions between the two markets. Our analysis shows that newspaper revenue is mainly influenced by macroeconomic developments. A negative influence of TV advertising on revenue from the advertising market exists, but is fairly limited. The newspaper industry as a whole seems to be able to deal with these threats to their revenue by raising the real prices they charge for their products.The authors wish to thank Frank den Butter and anonymous referees for their comments on a previous version of this article.