Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Circulatuion drops big again

Data released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations on Monday.showed circulation overall took another nosedive, with daily down 2.5% and Sunday down 3.1% -- one of the period's biggest drops, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the newspaper sector rallied on Monday despite the weak circulation numbers.

It's the metros with circulations between 100,000 and 500,000 that took the biggest hit. Daily circulation slipped 3.3% and Sunday dropped 4%. "These papers feel most at risk to us as they likely suffer from more intense competition, both from traditional media outlets in their markets and from online, and their niche is harder to define," said Merrill Lynch.

At Knight Ridder, which also reported some of the biggest declines, Merrill Lynch looked at the 12 papers that McClatchy is planning to divest (McClatchy announced it will acquire Knight Ridder and sell 12 of its papers) and found that daily circulation dipped 4.7% and Sunday dropped 4.1% (excluding St. Paul, which gained, daily declined 6% and Sunday declined 5.2%). For the papers that McClatchy is keeping daily circ decreased 4.1% and Sunday dropped 4.7%.

[Source: Editor & Publisher]

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