The Association of Free Community Papers reported today that 70% of its members reported decreased revenues in the second quarter of 2009:

More than 70% of reporting publications indicated that revenues are down more than 1% in the latest AFCP quarterly revenue poll. This compares to 67% in the first quarter, 72% in the fourth quarter 2008 and 58% to 68% in previous quarters.

Hardest hit were the west coast (85%) and Mid-Atlantic (85%) regions with the Northeast reporting improved results. The Southeast continued to show about 70% of reporting publications were down.

The Midwest appears to be weakening as 73% indicated revenue declines. Previously, the Midwest had been much stronger than the rest of the country. The Rocky Mountain States still appear stronger than the rest of the country, but only 11 papers reported in this region.

Community Newspapers seem to be faring slightly better than shoppers during the past two quarters while rural markets appear to be slightly better than suburban ones. Only a few Urban publications reported results which make trends in this area difficult to discern.

MarketingCharts.com reports magazine ad pages continue to decline in Q2 2009. 

The trend of declining ad pages has been significant over the past year: in Q208, ad pages were down 8.2%, followed by a drop of 13% in Q3, 17% in Q4 and 26% in Q109.

The magazines that saw the steepest decline in ad pages:

• Country Home, which saw ad pages fall 80.7%
• Conde Nast Portfolio (now shuttered), which lost 69.1% of ad pages.
• Blender (also shuttered), which saw ad pages fall 82.2%.

In terms of the biggest ad-page gainers, People Style Watch saw ad pages leap 33.1%, while Country Weekly’s pages grew 33% and Muscle & Fitness saw a 13.1% gain, MediaBuyerPlanner wrote.