Paper Outlook — Prices Are Going Soft

"In the face of strong ad pages and catalog sales, it's amazing that paper producers aren't able to institute price increases," Janis notes. "It's clearly an oversupply problem, and that's definitely beneficial to publishers."

Pricing levels aren't being buoyed from the strong demand due to the excess capacity. A drop in advertising pages, which would add even more to oversupply, would help bring down prices further this year, Janis believes. He sees publishers getting some further reductions by the fourth quarter of this year.