ARLINGTON, VA: Even though ad revenue from traditional print media decreased 8.6% in 2013 and overall adspend fell 6.5% from the previous year, US newspapers have managed to find other sources of income, the latest industry data has shown.

According to projections from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), total US newspaper media revenues fell 2.6% to $37.6bn last year, yet circulation revenue increased by 3.7% to $10.87bn, while revenue from "new and other sources" rose 5% to $3.5bn.

US newspapers earned $23.57bn from advertising, or 63% of total revenues, and this included $17.3bn from traditional print (-8.6%), $3.42bn from digital ads (+1.5%), $1.4bn from direct marketing (+2.4%) and $1.45bn from niche publications (-5.8%).

This means that traditional print ads now account for only about half of total newspaper revenues and the NAA identified an industry trend towards digital and new sources, such as marketing services and event marketing.

Digital agency and marketing services recorded an impressive 43% growth rate in 2013, revenue from event marketing increased 5%, commercial printing income rose 4% while income from royalties, licensing, rental, waste and scrap sales climbed 3%.

However, e-commerce registered a fall of -4% while revenue from distribution of other products to consumers fell -2%.

Within the circulation revenue total of $10.9bn, digital-only circulation income recorded rapid growth of 47% while print and digital bundled circulation rose 107%.

Meanwhile, mobile ad revenues increased by 77%, but they accounted for less than 1% of overall revenues.

NAA concluded that the US newspaper industry is evolving its business model "in a significant way" by taking advantage of developments in technology, consumer behaviour and advertisers' interest to diversify its revenue stream.

Data sourced from Newspaper Association of America; additional content by Warc staff