Newspapers Can't Shake Circulation Doldrums

Editor & Publisher ^ | May 3, 04 | Mark Fitzgerald and Jennifer Saba

[churchillbuff]

Even as advertisers return with gusto to newspapers, circulation continues to be a lagging economic indicator.

Fully half of the nation's largest 38 newspapers reported weekday circulation declines, according to an analysis by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) of the latest FAS-FAX numbers released this afternoon by the Audit Bureau of Circulations for the six-month period ending March 2004.

[churchillbuff]

The Washington Post was clearly the highest-profile circulation loser, dropping 23,814 copies, or 3% of its circulation, to 772,553. The San Francisco Chronicle failed to hold on to the big gains it rolled up while the rival San Francisco Examiner was floundering under the former ownership of the feckless Fang family. The Chron was off 2.6% to 501,135.

[boxsmith13]

No one wants to read a leftist rag, that is why circulation is falling

[mewzilla]

Bingo :)

[smiley]

Maybe if these newspapers would start doing serious journalistic reporting, people would read their paper; NOT their spin.

[2banana]

Similarly, the Post managed nearly double-digit growth -- up 9% to 678,012 -- that reflects its single-copy price of a quarter, compared to 50 cents for the competing tabloid Daily News.

Even though the slightly right of center post is racking up huge growth stats, the leftist editors of America's newspapers would rather go out of business than change their ways...

[EdReform]

No one wants to read a leftist rag, that is why circulation is falling

Indeed

[Malesherbes]

This business is as dead as the proverbial dodo. Electronic news is faster and more comprehensive. Newsprint is expensive and will get more expensive. Personally, I'll not miss any of these liberal fishwrappers.

[rocky88]

"The Wall Street Journal posted an extraordinary circulation gain because it added to its total several hundred thousand online subscribers who were not counted a year ago. The FAS-FAX indicates that the Journal's total circulation, which jumped 15.4% to 2,101,017, includes 336,813 online subscriptions that count as paid circulation under ABC rules. That's about 56,000 more than the year-to-year gain of 280,417. Similarly, the Post managed nearly double-digit growth -- up 9% to 678,012 -- that reflects its single-copy price of a quarter, compared to 50 cents for the competing tabloid Daily News." I guess the masses are waking up to the fact that liberal media bias really does exist (although we've known this for years, it is just now starting to filter down, thanks mainly to Bernie Goldberg hitting the mainstream with his tome.) Go WSJ & Post!!! "The Washington Post was clearly the highest-profile circulation loser, dropping 23,814 copies...." and it will keep going south and it won't be pretty........

[churchillbuff]

Even though the slightly right of center post is racking up huge growth stats

I think ideology might be a factor in circulation at the very margins, but the more fundamental factor is that the newspaper industry is a dinosaur in an electronic age. I'm not saying anything we haven't all heard a million times: When you can get up to the minute reports on radio and TV, and internet, the newspaper shrinks in importance. It may retain a niche audience, but as today's young (non-newspaper-reading) generation ages, even that niche audience will shrink.

[Mo1]

Fully half of the nation's largest 38 newspapers reported weekday circulation declines, according to an analysis by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) of the latest FAS-FAX numbers released this afternoon by the Audit Bureau of Circulations for the six-month period ending March 2004.

Here's a hint to these nit wits .. Stop lying to us and maybe we'll buy the dang paper??

[OrangeDaisy]

The national news articles often run in our local paper at least two days after I've read them on FR! I still need the newspaper for local news and sports. There's no up to the minute board for that, and I rarely find time to watch the local TV news.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Boohoo. This is self-inflicted. If they were not such rigid leftist ideologues, they might appeal to a broader audience.

[Piranha]

I wouldn't. I stopped reading the NYTimes daily because of media bias, but continue to get my local paper. Typically it piles up unread, and I bring piles of old ones on airplane flights where I catch up.

I don't read conservative newspapers either.

I get 95% of my news or more from internet newspaper sites, Free Republic and several weblogs. I also am a paid subscriber to the electronic Wall Street Journal and visit it approximately weekly.

Newspapers are not going to die like dinosaurs, though. They will evolve into something else, like movies did when radio and then TV, and now the internet, supplanted them (in fact, as we know, the movie industry is bigger today financially than it was in its heyday, just as cruise-ships are bigger than they were when they were the only form of trans-Atlantic travel).

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

I'm a new print copy WSJ subscriber. We exist.

[Congressman Billybob]

Clicked to the link and read the whole article. Noted that Editor & Publisher correctly noted that two newspapers, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post accounted for almost all of what little gains in circulation existed.

Then the article seeks to denigrate the gains at these two newspapers by saying that the WSJ's gain was due to its inclusion of "paid subscriptions to its website." And it says that the growth at the Post was due to its holding its cost per issue to "25 cents, unlike its main competition which charges 50 cents per issue."

Unlike Editor & Publisher, I note that these two newspapers are on the conservative side of the political spectrum. Maybe, just maybe, these two newspapers gained in circulation for the same reason that Fow News is eating the lunch of other networks, they PUBLISH more of the truth, and less of the usual Dem/lib trash and twaddle.

Nah, that couldn't be the explanation, could it? [End sarcasm.]

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "Honesty Problems with Kerry and Gorelick: Pin the Truth on the Democrat."

[Vinnie_Vidi_Vici]

Probably due to the reduction in fresh fish being sold, thereby obviating the need for these papers with no other redeeming value.

[altura]

In an abortive effort to cut costs, the Dallas Morning News fired all its free lance writers, including me.

One of the problems is the subscribers and readers are mostly middle-aged and old, people who grew up reading the paper and aren't quite as inclined to get news off the net.

I, for one, like to have a paper, but the front page of the DMN is (almost) useless, it is so slanted. The rest of the paper is one of the best in the nation, but they keep trying to attract younger and hispanic readers who just aren't interested and ignore their base.

[beckett]

Um...I think perhaps in some remote way a little thing called the internet might play a role in the decline of hardcopy newspapers. Don't quote me.

[churchillbuff]

In an abortive effort to cut costs, the Dallas Morning News fired all its free lance writers, including me.

Tell me, has the DMN moved to the left recently? It was once a very conservative paper, if I remember correctly.