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Posted on 05/09/2006 6:32:25 PM PDT by dangus
The major newspapers around the nation are all chirping in harmony that all is well in newspaper-world: the Audit Bureau of Circulation's report showing huge declines in the nation's largest cities' largest newspapers are only down because internet news readership is up. Don't believe it.
Two seemingly contraditory trends are happening at once: Readership is down the most in precisely the areas where the network effect would most help newspapers establish a dominance through synergism with their web sites and their hardcopy readerships: the large, urban markets. At the same time, readership is holding steady the best at newspapers whose readers are most relying on the internet for their access.
The worst declines are at big-city, liberal cosmopolitan newspapers like The Boston Globe, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Detroit News/Free Press, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, etc.
But not all big-city newspapers are doing poorly. A handful are getting by pretty well: The New York papers, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, etc. Several of these papers, such as the New York Post for the strongest example, have huge on-line readerships despite strangely weak on-line content.
Small-town and suburban newspapers would seem to have it the worst. Their bigger neighbors can blanket their coverage area with their on-line databases, and have far superior financial resources to provide more on-line content. So their readers can most find what they are looking for at other internet sites, while they offer the least incentive to stay. And yet their readers do stay.
The truth may be something that is very uncomfortable for the big-city papers: More and more readers are simply becoming disaffected by the one-sided news they provide. On-line readers are most aware of the broader diversity of opinion and coverage available, and they expect to find that when they buy their newspapers.
It used to be that major-city newspapers often outsold smaller suburban newspapers by being able to simultaneously provide more news from the smaller suburban market while providing all the resources of the big city. More and more readers, however, seem to be content with sticking with their more local and, occasionally, slightly more politically moderate newspapers.
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Overall readership is down 2.5%. That's a large drop, but not nearly as large as these major city newspapers: The Boston Globe is down 8.5%. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is down 6.6%. The Los Angeles Times is down 5.4%. The San Francisco Chronicale is down 15.6%. The Washington Post is down 3.7%. The New York Daily News is down 3.7%.
Newspapers which saw their readership hold steady or increase include the USA Today, up .9%, the Wall Street Journal, down only 1%, The New York Post, down only .7%, and the Star-Ledger (NJ suburbs) up .9%.
Reported gains at the Chicago Tribune and New York Times are very misleading. The New York Times made a big push to make itself a national newspaper, driving publication costs through the roof. That the circulation was up a whopping 1% hardly has thrilled anyone. And the Chicago Tribune is up .9%, after huge readership-inflated scandals saw their marketshare collapse in previous reports.
Right now it's a slow, agonizing death for 'em.
Likely, there is a correlation between the growth of online participants and the demise of newspapers. Online has choice, immediacy, and balance (depending on what you are looking for). Newspapers cannot compete against that. I hate to see newspapers die, but joy in the demise of the "cult of journalism."
I stopped reading the Detroit Free Press and USA Today when the coverage of Abu Grahib surpassed the total coverage that 9-11 had recieved. I read those papers daily but haven't bought any of them in years.
I don't understand how they think they can alienate the majority of the people in this country and still stay in business.
I wonder when the Bullsheviks at the Minneapolis Star Tribune are going to start paying readers to carry around copies of their smear sheet to make it look like they have circulation.
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Dial-up killer alert!
That "dinosaur" picture is 572K...
It's almost that bad: The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle have taken to giving away vast numbers of small, tabloid newspamplets, and treating them as part of their overall circulation. This is in response to the maker of Narnia injecting other small dailies with huge amounts of cash and marketing them as the Washington Examiner newspaper (formerly the Arlington Journal, or something like that.)
Read the article. I addressed the fact the correlation does not exist.
The city Newspapers in medium size cities are doing ok.They have learned to adapt to the community.People still want to see High School Sports and Little League coverage.They are making the internet work for them also.
As this article implies the problem is Leftist Newspapers with conservative readers.The AJC made the decision to write off the suburban readers that advertisers want to target.They would rather write about rappers getting shot on the front page and leave conservative writers off the editorial page.
The solution? Shorter articles and simpler words and grammar. Problem solved. It's the dummies out there!
(What about next year? Got crayons?)
Does anyone have any information on how the Washington times is doing?
I would also like to know if they have the smaller affiliates of the larger newspapers listed - i.e. The Tuscaloosa News, owned by the New York Times.
If they hadn't been so busy shilling for the National Education Association and their social engineering educational programs all these years they might have some readers smart enough to understand their writings.
I've been approached 3 times in the last 2 days by the AJC. I've taken great pleasure in saying I'll think about it when cynthia tucker is gone. Yea, yea, I know--that info will never get back to anyone that matters--but it sure makes me feel good.
I wonder what USAToday's circulation would be, were it not given out for free at darn near every Hotel that I've ever stayed at.
Newspapers need to get back to their core product--local news. I can get national news just about anywhere, so why is the local newspaper bothering? The one competetive edge the local rag has is its news-gathering resources, i.e. reporters that beat the streets and gather the local news. Bloggers can't compete with that--they're mainly into news analysis (and they do that better than the local editors). I would gladly support my local paper if they focused on local issues WITHOUT EDITORIAL COMMENTARY! But until they change, they're just another special interest group with a newsletter.
It's really amazing, isn't it? The media is the one business that actively insults their customers and then wonders why sales are down.
Where are those charts showing the stock prices of the major newspapers (ski slope)?
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