Dow Jones & Company Reports February 2004 Advertising Volume; Confirms Previous First Quarter EPS Guidance.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 12, 2004

Dow Jones & Company (NYSE: DJ) today reported February advertising volumes for its leading print publications.

Advertising linage, or volume, at The Wall Street Journal's U.S. edition decreased 1.7% in February, with year-to-date linage down 3.4% (down 0.9% on a per issue basis). In the general advertising category at the Journal, February linage decreased 24.7% with declines in auto and professional services advertising partially offset by increases in insurance, retail, corporate and travel advertising. In the Journal's technology category, linage increased 14.6% in February, mainly because of increases in advertising for computer hardware and personal computers, partially offset by decreases in communications and B2B e-commerce advertising. The Journal's financial advertising increased 47.4% in February as a result of increases in wholesale financial and tombstone advertising, partially offset by continued weakness in retail financial advertising. Classified/Other linage increased 2.2% in the month of February.

At Barron's, national advertising pages increased 2.1% in February, with year-to-date pages up 2.6% due to increases in financial and technology advertising.

The Wall Street Journal Europe's linage increased 4.2% per issue in February, with year-to-date linage up 1.4%. The Asian Wall Street Journal's linage decreased 6.7% per issue, with year-to-date linage down 4.2%.

Ottaway Newspapers' same property advertising linage increased 5.3% because of increases in auto and real estate classified advertising, national advertising and one additional Sunday, partially offset by a modest decline in other classified advertising. Year-to-date total linage at Ottaway Newspapers was up 4.6% on a same property basis.

Commenting on February results, Rich Zannino, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Dow Jones & Company, said: "We continued to battle an uneven B2B advertising environment in February. On the one hand, we're very encouraged by strong double-digit increases in the Journal's core financial and technology advertising categories during the month. On the other hand, these gains were offset by a steep drop in automotive advertising compared to February 2003, which was the biggest volume month of 2003 for auto, and in professional services advertising, which was up 93% last February. On a more positive note, in March we expect ad linage to swing strongly upward, with gains at the Journal in the upper teens, driven by two extra publishing days and easier comparisons to last March's war-depressed levels. This would bring first quarter Journal linage to a mid single digit increase, within the range of our previous guidance. Based on this linage, together with continued expense control and strong performances in other business units, we're maintaining our previous first quarter EPS guidance."

Dow Jones & Company (NYSE: DJ; dowjones.com) publishes The Wall Street Journal and its international and online editions, Barron's and the Far Eastern Economic Review, Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Indexes, and the Ottaway group of community newspapers. Dow Jones is co-owner with Reuters Group of Factiva, with Hearst of SmartMoney and with NBC of CNBC television operations in Asia and Europe. Dow Jones also provides news content to CNBC and radio stations in the U.S.

Information Relating To Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release cites certain factors and circumstances that have impacted the company's advertising results and contains certain forward-looking statements. The absence of these factors and circumstances does not guarantee an improvement in future advertising results, and certain risks and uncertainties could cause actual future results to continue to suffer or to differ materially from those anticipated, including the cyclical nature of the company's business and the strong negative impact of economic downturns on advertising revenues; the negative impact on the Company's core advertising market-B2B advertising-caused by weak corporate profits, corporate scandals that have resulted in damage to business, investor and public confidence; the risk that the current weak advertising market, particularly in the financial and technology segments, will not improve or will improve very slowly or only to a limited extent; the risk that the Company will not benefit from or will only benefit to a limited extent from any improvement in the advertising market in the face of competition from other national business magazines, television, trade publications and other publications and services; and such other risk factors as may be included from time to time in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dow Jones & Company 2004 Advertising Linage Percentage Increases


                                            February      Year to date

                                          Actual  Per    Actual  Per
                                                  Issue          Issue


THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

General                                     (24.7)       (18.8)
Technology                                   14.6         (5.3)
Financial                                    47.4         23.6
Classified & Other                            2.2          5.9

Total                                        (1.7)  (1.7) (3.4)  (0.9)

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE (1)            4.2    4.2  (1.0)   1.4

THE ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL (2)            (1.8)  (6.7) (6.6)  (4.2)

OTTAWAY NEWSPAPERS, INC. (3)
(excludes preprints)
Daily                                         4.4          3.5
Non-Daily                                     9.3          9.7

Total                                         5.3          4.6

BARRON'S
Nat'l Advertising Pages                       2.1    2.1   2.6    2.6

                                             2004   2003  2004   2003
Number of Issues:
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL                        19     19    40     41

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE                 20     20    41     42

THE ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL                  20     19    39     40

BARRON'S                                        4      4     8      8




(1) Excludes barter advertising
(2) Excludes barter and regional advertising
(3) Excludes acquisitions and divestitures from the current and prior
    year periods