Monday, April 30, 2007

Newspaper circulation falls 2.1 percent

The Audit Bureau of Circulations, for the fifth consecutive reporting period, today listed steep losses and a few gains in circulation. The Newspaper Association of America reported daily circulation down 2.1 per cent and Sunday down 3.1 percent. Overall daily circulation for the spring period declined 2.1% to 44,961,066 and Sunday decreased 3.1% to 48,102,437..

The New York Times was down 1.9 percent to 1,120,420. Circulation was up two-tenths of one percent to 2,798,877 at USA Today and 7.6 percent to 7,624,728 at the New York Post. The Wall Street Journal also was up six-tenths of a percent to 2,082,420.

Some of the largest declines occurred at metro papers. The Dallas Morning News hemorrhaged 14.2% of daily circ to 411,919. Sunday fell 13.3% to 563,079. Daily and Sunday circulation at The San Diego Union-Tribune slipped 6.5% to 296,331 and 7.2% to 378696 respectively. At the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, daily circ declined 4.9% to 230,870 and Sunday decreased 4.4% to 251,666.

The Miami Herald lost 5.5% of its daily circulation to 272,299 copies and 10.1% of its Sunday circ 342,432 copies. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale was down 8.6% to 226,591 while Sunday fell 6% to 319,103. The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., which recently revised its September 2006 publisher's statement, said daily circ fell 6% to 372,629. Sunday dropped 4.3% to 570,523.

Daily circulation at The Orange County (Calif.) Register slipped 5% to 284,613 while Sunday was down 7% to 329,549. The Austin American-Statesman reported daily circ dropped 5.6% to 173,579 and Sunday declined 215,894.

The Los Angeles Times lost 4.2% of its weekday circ to 815,723. Sunday was down 4.7% to 1,173,096. Daily Circulation at the Chicago Tribune slipped 2.1% to 566,827. Sunday fell 1.7% to 940,620. At The Sun in Baltimore, weekday circulation 1.7% to 232,138 and Sunday dropped 6% to 377,561. Daily and Sunday circulation at Newsday plummeted 6.9% to 398,231 and 5% to 464,169.

The Washington Post lost 3.4% of its weekday circ to 699,130 copies. Sunday fell 3.2% to 929,921.

[Source Editor & Publisher, AP, Forbes and NAA. Click on headline to go to the E&P report]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

More and more people living in this country. But newspaper circulation is going down. That tells me, with my West Virginia math, that newspapers are getting a smaller and smaller percentage of the population to buy their product. Unfortunately, a downward spiral with no end till newspapers realize that they no longer are the only game in town and figure out how to join the new technology, and with more than just a web site.

I don't have the answer. If I did, I could make more money than Par Ridder and not have to steal computer information before I changed jobs.

By the way, remember all the furor at the BJ when an artist copied a BJ software to his personal computer? BJ honchos wanted to fire the person. Till the BJ realized that THEY were using the same software to illegally copy it onto terminals all over the building. So they had to buy enough copies of the same software for every terminal that used it, then sent out a memo telling all of us that we couldn't do what they did any more.