Spanish newspaper ad revenues drop 20 pct in 2008

By Robert Hetz

MADRID, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Spain's economic downturn and a slowdown in demand pushed newspaper advertising revenues down by a fifth last year, endangering thousands of media jobs, the head of the Madrid Journalists Association said on Wednesday.

"We estimate that advertising revenue for the written press has fallen around 20 percent in 2008," Fernando Gonzalez Urbaneja told Reuters.

The forecast is in line with estimates released by consultancy group Arce Media, which sees the decline in newspaper ad revenues worsening in the last quarter of 2008 from the about 16 percent drop in the first nine months of the year.

Advertising revenue for newspapers and magazines grew 6.2 percent to around 2.715 billion euros ($3.70 billion) in 2007, data supplied by Arce Media showed.

The drop in advertising this year has been accompanied by stagnation in the circulation of the main newspapers, Gonzalez said, adding up to 3,000 jobs in the media sector could be lost.

"We estimate that there are between 25,000 and 30,000 journalists in Spain and we reckon about 10 percent could lose their jobs," he said.

Around 10,000 journalists in Spain work for newspapers, with a similar number in the audiovisual sector, while several thousands work in other media and in domestic and foreign press departments.

Some companies have already begun to cut their workforce, including the Zeta media group, the daily newspaper La Gaceta de los Negocios and the television station Localia.

Last month, media group Vocento said it will have to cut jobs at its free paper Que as the downturn continues to hit the advertising sector.

It was difficult to make any revenue forecasts for 2009, Gonzalez said, but added newspapers could cut the number of promotions they offer in terms of the sale of DVDs and books as a way of continuing to cut costs. ($1=.7344 Euro) (Reporting by Robert Hetz; writing by Judy MacInnes; Editing by Hans Peters