Some of the top-line findings from the Jordan, Edmiston Group’s mergers-and-acquisitions report for the first quarter of 2009, released this morning:

SEE ALSO: Tracking The Shift In Media M&A Dollars in 2008

—Total media M&A transactions were down 36 percent versus the first quarter 2008, to 129; total deal value plummeted 91 percent, to $1.3 billion. 
—Transactions in the first quarter versus the fourth quarter of 2008 were down 7 percent.
—Some 62 percent of all M&A deals during the quarter were in digital, down slightly from the year-ago quarter.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that newspaper acquisitions were down 29 percent during the quarter, given the industry’s problems, but deals involving consumer magazines—another traditional media sector in serious trouble—were up almost 90 percent in the quarter. This could indicate that investors see more value in magazine brands with an eye to building out digital businesses than newspapers, which continue to struggle to define themselves online.