±±¾©Èü³µpk10

Dow Jones reported that first-quarter profits fell by more than half, dropping to $8.2m (£4.36m) from $17.8m last year, hit by a poor performance of advertising at its flagship Wall Street Journal title.

The WSJ relies heavily on IT and financial advertisers, which have not been spending. The paper has suffered a long-term ad slump that has not improved in step with the rest of the industry.

One analyst told Reuters that the outlook for Dow Jones, its stock trading at a two-year low, was looking grim.

"Dow Jones and The New York Times were pretty much as bad as expected and the outlook for Dow Jones remains grim," Edward Atorino, an analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners, said.

Despite the fall in profits, Dow Jones saw revenue rise 2.6% to $412.1m.

Chairman and chief executive Peter Kann said that the company was not pleased with the results. However, he said he was cautiously optimistic that advertising trends would improve.

"We're obviously not pleased with total results against the prior period suddenly changing, despite some improving trends.

"We continue to battle a persistently difficult B2B print advertising climate, particularly in the technology category. However, heading into the second quarter, we are cautiously optimistic that advertising trends will improve," he said.

The New York Times was also hurt by flat technology and financial advertising as it reported first-quarter profits, excluding a one-time gain for the sale of its New York headquarters, down to $43.2m from $58.4m last time.

The New York Times and Dow Jones have each pursued similar strategies in efforts to diversify their businesses online. The New York Times recently bought consumer website About.com from Primedia for $410m.

In a larger deal, Dow Jones bought the business news service MarketWatch, owner of the website CBS.MarketWatch.com, in a $519m deal after a bidding war for the company.

The two hope to benefit from the boom in internet advertising, which is the fastest growing sector in the ad industry.

If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .