Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Alexia Quadrani with JP Morgan.
Alexia Quadrani - JP Morgan
Can you give us a bit more color on the auto category? You mentioned the lessening of decline, particularly in September. Is there any way you can give us a sense of how much the dealerships closing have hurt the business versus how much of a pick up you’re seeing in the existing dealerships that are left?
Brian Lawlor
As we stated our automotive was down 40% in third quarter and we did see a progressive build through the quarter which ended 32% in September. I don’t think that we’ve seen much of an impact on the dealerships that are closing. Those have been traditionally lower performing dealerships that have had limited to no marketing budgets and so we really haven’t seen any impact. I would tell you that we are seeing some momentum. As we looked at October there were a couple of factory domestic groups that increased their spending year-to-year. Our individual dealer spending year-to-year in October was flat. In fact, although our automotive category was still down, the factory domestic, which is one of the subcategories within that, was actually up in October. So, while we still have a ways to go for the entire auto category to be positive, these are the first promising signs that we’ve seen in awhile.
Mark Contreras
In the third quarter we improved about two percentage points. Most of that, though, in our markets was the result of the Cash For Clunkers program and one bit of color on both the dealership question and on the mix, in our case, about a year ago we looked at the number of dealers that we did business with in the third quarter of last year and ‘07 to ‘08 it was down about 15%. We haven’t updated that number, but I think if we went back it would be down another five to ten percentage points, just the dealers that are no longer in business.
The second point there is if you looked at the mix between print and online, print is down in the neighborhood of 40%, online though is down in the neighborhood of 20% and so there is about a 20 point gap between print and online and we think we’ll see some continuing robust growth in the online side and in auto when the economy breaks.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
