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Newspaper Circ Drops Another 5%; WSJ Is Sole Meaningful Gainer
NewsBusters ^ | October 31, 2010 | Tom Blumer

Posted on 10/31/2010 11:02:57 AM PDT by Zakeet

This past week, we learned that it was another year, another dive for newspaper circulations: 5% for dailies, and 4.5% on Sundays, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That's not as bad as some past declines, but it's still going the wrong way.

As usual, they'll blame the Internet, and reject the possibility that persistent, pervasive bias and blind adherence to politically correct reporting priorities have anything to do with the results. But as I've similarly asked before, how does one explain away the fact that the only daily paper in the nation's top 25 that has shown consistent gains during the past several years is the (usually) fair and balanced Wall Street Journal?

Bloomberg Businessweek has an Associated Press-compiled list of the results at the top 25 daily papers for the six months that ended on September 30 compared to the same six-month period in 2009, as well as their Sunday editions where applicable.

Here are some of the more noteworthy entries, absences, and some additional observations, based on this year's results and background knowledge accumulated during the past five years.

The Wall Street Journal and the Dallas Morning News are the only papers showing an increase in daily circulation (up 1.8% to 2,061,042, and up 0.2% to 264,459, respectively). The Journal, which had slightly trailed USA Today until 18 months ago, now has a lead of 230,000 over Gannett's flagship paper, which experienced a 3.7% decline.

On Sundays, only two papers showed improvement: The Minneapolis Star Tribune (up 5.7% to 504,616) and the St. Petersburg Times (up 1.9% to 377,235). According to a report at twincities.com, the Star Trib's Sunday increase "reflects the launch a year ago of its "Early Sunday" single-copy edition, which replaced its Saturday single-copy edition." The Star Trib's daily circ fell 2.3% to 297,478 in the past year.

Fully one-third of the 24 list members presenting year-over-year comparables had daily circ declines of 8% or more: The LA Times (-8.7%), Houston Chronicle (-10.5%), Newsday of Long Island (-11.8%), Denver Post (-9.1%), Chicago Sun-Times (-9.0%), Detroit Free Press (-9%), San Francisco Chronicle (-11.2%), and the Star-Ledger of Newark (-9.3%).

Of the 22 papers reporting year-over-year Sunday circ results, seven showed declines of 7% or more: The LA Times (-8.4%), Washington Post (-7%), Newsday (-9.2%), Cleveland Plain Dealer (-10.8%), Detroit Free Press (-11.8%), San Diego Union Tribune (-7.4%), and the San Francisco Chronicle (-7.9%).

Special awards for long-term underachievement go to the following papers:

Two non-presences in the top 25, both of which tack far more to the left than their potential audiences, continue to be noteworthy.

The first is the Atlanta Journal Constitution. It dropped out of the top 25 a year ago, and has stayed out. This year, its circ dropped by 14% to below 200,000 -- by a lot, to 181,504. That may not even keep it in the top 35 nationwide, let alone the Top 25. One example: The St. Paul Pioneer Press, which covers only part of the sixteenth-largest metro area in the USA, came in with higher daily circulation than the AJC. Atlanta is the country’s ninth-largest metro area.

The second is the Boston Globe, serving the nation's 10th-largest metro area. Only 2-1/2 years ago, it had the 14th-largest daily circulation. It dropped out of the Top 25 six months ago. Its latest result: Down 15.6% to 222,683. The paper's lipstick-on-a-pig headline: "Circulation declines slow at the Globe." A group whose makeup is unclear and whose agenda bears watching, the 2100 Trust, announced its intent to buy the Globe from its parent company, the New York Times, on October 20.

Excluding the Wall Street Journal, circulation at the nation's top two dozen papers has dropped over 28% in the past 5-1/2 years -- and we're supposed to believe that it's all due to technology? If bias weren't a significant problem, we would expect that the same players who dominated print media for decades would be dominant forces in Internet-based news -- but to a large extent, they're not.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: circulation; mediabias; msm; newspaper
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Good News ... We're not going broke as fast as we were last year

1 posted on 10/31/2010 11:02:59 AM PDT by Zakeet
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To: abb
Another year, another dive ping.
2 posted on 10/31/2010 11:03:54 AM PDT by Zakeet (Like the wise Wee Wee said, "We can't be broke ... we still have checks in the checkbook.")
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To: Zakeet

Another sign that people are tired of collectivism.


3 posted on 10/31/2010 11:06:08 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: Zakeet

If we didn’t have elections every two years to throw money at these maggots, they would have been gone a long, long time ago.


4 posted on 10/31/2010 11:06:35 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Just another white boy riding in the back of the bus next to the Emergency Exit.)
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To: Zakeet

If they are going to keep catering to the illiterates, they had better get good at telling stories with pictures.


5 posted on 10/31/2010 11:10:04 AM PDT by stevem
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To: Zakeet

As the Liberal Media presides over its own demise with falling readership we can write on their tombstone. “We squandered out inheritance of the fourth estate while trying to cover for the misdeeds of the other three”


6 posted on 10/31/2010 11:11:23 AM PDT by shoff (Maybe even New York will throw the bums out !! (One can Hope))
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To: Zakeet

Daily newspapers are probably a dumb idea nowdays. They might actually get more subscriptions if they go to once or twice a week and then put a whole lot more effort into improving the quality.


7 posted on 10/31/2010 11:14:31 AM PDT by mamelukesabre (Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum (If you want peace prepare for war))
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To: Zakeet

Sure the bias is part of the problem. Very poor writing is also a substantial problem. Who wants to read an article that seems to be written by a sixth grader? If I wanted to be a junior high english teacher, maybe I could put up with it. I don’t and I won’t; nor will I pay for the privilege.

Perhaps the poor writing caused by shallow thinking is not unconnected to the liberal bias.


8 posted on 10/31/2010 11:15:35 AM PDT by ALPAPilot
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To: Zakeet

I pay $2.00 a day for the WSJ. Well worth it too.

Any other print media I read is day old from the recycle bin.

I consider it a moral imperative to starve any communist apparatus and the evil bastards that operate them , by any method available.


9 posted on 10/31/2010 11:16:22 AM PDT by mmercier ( the tape is real, the allegations are untrue)
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To: stevem

“If they are going to keep catering to the illiterates, they had better get good at telling stories with pictures.”

The media does write on a fifth grade level and anyone who reads on a fifth grade level or below is considered to be functionally illiterate.


10 posted on 10/31/2010 11:18:45 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: Zakeet

Great news BUMP!
I want everybody associated with the Democrat “mainstream” newsrooms to lose their jobs, their homes, their savings, and their families. For what they have done to this nation, they deserve nothing less.


11 posted on 10/31/2010 11:19:11 AM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: Zakeet

USA Today would be in the toilet if it weren’t for motel/hotels propping up their numbers. These places should be offering a choice between WSJ and the NYT’s when reservations are made instead of propping up a leftist rag.


12 posted on 10/31/2010 11:23:08 AM PDT by onevoter
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To: Zakeet

These are especially bad considering it is an election year!


13 posted on 10/31/2010 11:34:27 AM PDT by stocksthatgoup
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To: Zakeet

These are especially bad considering it is an election year!


14 posted on 10/31/2010 11:34:32 AM PDT by stocksthatgoup
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To: Zakeet

These are especially bad considering it is an election year!


15 posted on 10/31/2010 11:34:38 AM PDT by stocksthatgoup
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To: Zakeet

Which brings to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and Rupert Murdoch.

It is fashionable, almost mandatory, at Free Republic to bash these two as anti American Islam loving terrorist promoting enemies. Any effort to declare either as great minds and great businessmen meets disdain and conservato snobbery.

And yet the same two who are criticized for the destruction of Fox News are also involved with the WSJ. Increasingly, there is intense synergism at the two outlets. The best of the Wall Street Journal minds are increasingly bringing their reporting and observational skills to appearances on Fox News.

The sanctimonious selfrighousists have it all wrong. Murdoch/Ailes are brilliant mediaists and the Prince being the fantastically shrewd investor knows a good investment when he sees one.

The eating of the pudding is good! Fox numbers are way ahead of the others as is the WSJ growing in the midst of epidemic death.


16 posted on 10/31/2010 11:38:27 AM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... Greetings Jacques. The revolution is coming)
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To: Zakeet

post-modern jourbalism.


17 posted on 10/31/2010 12:00:32 PM PDT by ken21 (who runs the gop?)
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To: FlingWingFlyer

“If we didn’t have elections every two years to throw money at these maggots, they would have been gone a long, long time ago.

Don’t forget they still have a lock on obits and legals, and have correspondingly jacked the rates of those two categories through the roof.


18 posted on 10/31/2010 12:06:35 PM PDT by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Made from The Right Stuff!)
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To: Zakeet

It will be a proud day when the New York Times stops publishing.The great thing is no one is going to pay good money to see read that garbage online when they can go to the Democrat National Committee website for free and read it there.


19 posted on 10/31/2010 12:07:26 PM PDT by chuckee
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To: chuckee

They give away the news papers here in Florida...Sunday paper is for coupons...for old people...Have not read a paper in 10 years...


20 posted on 10/31/2010 12:15:02 PM PDT by Hojczyk
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