Posted on 05/08/2006 7:51:09 AM PDT by george76
Newspaper circulation fell 2.6 percent in the six-month period ending in March, according to data released Monday, as the industry continued to struggle with competition from other media outlets and the Internet.
The decline in average paid weekday circulation was about the same as the previous time newspapers reported six-month circulation figures for the period ending last September, according to the Newspaper Association of America, a trade group.
The NAA reported that average paid circulation at Sunday newspapers fell 3.1 percent versus the same period a year ago, also a comparable decline with the last time circulation figures were reported.
Several top newspapers reported significant declines in the period, including Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times, down 5.4 percent at 851,832; The Washington Post, down 3.7 percent at 724,242; the New York Daily News, also down 3.7 percent at 708,477. News Corp.'s New York Post slipped 0.7 percent to 673,379.
The largest slump at a major daily came at the San Francisco Chronicle, where average paid weekday circulation fell 15.6 percent to 398,246 as the newspaper continued to cut back on less desirable circulation such as copies paid for by advertisers and then distributed for free.
Patricia Hoyt, a spokeswoman for the Chronicle, said the cutbacks began at the beginning of last year and involved copies that "advertisers didn't value, were quite costly and essentially had no impact on our readership."
The Chronicle, which is owned by Hearst Corp., reported a similar decline in paid circulation for the previous six-month reporting period that ended last September.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
That's interesting. So, if I read that correctly, "paid circulation" includes copies paid for by advertisers but distributed free?
As billyjeff would say, "It depends on what the meaning of 'paid' is."
The Gay Rhonicle is so desperate, basically every medical office in N California gets free copies and many get free copies on Sat and Sunday when no one is even in these offices.
The Gay Rhonicle cooks its books re paid subscribers in a manner that would make Enron look like a minor player.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see newspaper readership continue to drop. People are getting tired of purchasing newspapers that don't report the news but purport some liberal agendas (and don't even have decent coupons on Sunday). We took the Dallas Morning News when we first moved here and have discontinued. I think we're going back to the Washington Times by mail.
Budget for "education" increases again and again and again..
Semper Fi
See my comments about the GayRhonicle cooking its circulation books to overcharge its advertisers:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1628573/posts?page=22#22
The GayRhonicle has a long and proud corporate tradition of making Marxist Homosexual Wet Dreams/lies into articles posing as news and journalism. If you can't trust them re their articles and editorials, why would anyone trust them re their bogus circulation numbers.
Niche papers are growing for the most part. My monthly business publication has grown 240% over he last two years.
The big city papers are suffering from the same illness as big cities.
"I have not bought a newspaper in over 5 yrs,i refuse to donate to liberals."Same here.Local papers here(Tampa Tribune+StPeteTimes)are blantantly anti-US,pro-illegal,etc,etc...I believe the drop in subscriptions/sales are a direct result of readers who are simply fed up with the bs the liberal media try to ram down our throats.
That is the reason I stopped giving them a quarter for the rags. Anyway, the bird died, so didn't need them any more. :)
Many smaller papers are selling out to Gannett and other lazy, production mills.
They copy the newswire reports and fill up the rest with advertising.
Circulation for Top 20 Newspapers in USA
Mon May 08 2006 08:55:53 ET
Here it is. The paid weekday circulation of the nation's 20 largest newspapers for the six-month period ending March 31, 2006.
1. USA Today, 2,272,815, up 0.09 percent
2. The Wall Street Journal, 2,049,786, down 1 percent
3. The New York Times, 1,142,464, up 0.5 percent
4. Los Angeles Times, 851,832, down 5.4 percent
5. The Washington Post, 724,242, down 3.7 percent
6. New York Daily News, 708,477, down 3.7 percent
7. New York Post, 673,379, down 0.7 percent
8. Chicago Tribune, 579,079, up 0.9 percent
9. Houston Chronicle, 513,387, down 3.6 percent
10. The Arizona Republic, 438,722, down 2.1 percent
11. Newsday, Long Island, 427,771, down 2.7 percent
12. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., 398,329, up 0.9 percent
13. San Francisco Chronicle, 398,246, down 15.6 percent
14. The Boston Globe, 397,288, down 8.5 percent
15. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 365,011, down 6.7 percent
16. Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, 362,964, down 2.9 percent
17. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 350,457, down 5.1 percent
18. Detroit Free Press, 345,861, up 0.04 percent
19. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 343,163, down 1.6 percent
20. St. Petersburg Times, Florida, 323,031, down 4.4 percent
I may as well go ahead and post the whole 9 yards for this potentially Drudge induced thread. :))
Gn 22:17 your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies
Newspaper sale$ decline should be blamed on the Journos
. . .
People who work at journalism full time ought to be able to do a better job of it than people for whom it is a hobby. But that's not going to happen as long as we "professional" journalists ignore stories we don't like and try to hide our mistakes. We think of ourselves as "gatekeepers." But there is not much future in being a gatekeeper when the walls are down.
I haven't subscribed to the NY Times for about ten years. My wife sometimes would pick up a copy of the Sunday paper at the local market after church, apparently because she missed some of the features, but in the last few years I've noticed that she did so less often, and now she seems to have dropped the habit.
There's no worse waster of trees or stuffer of landfills than the Sunday NY Times.
But I do kind of miss it for lighting my brushpiles with.
The dire situation is such that one major paper is now little more than one of those ad-filled free newspaper shoppers tossed on the lawn.
The major paper is distributed free to most homes with targeted circulations paid for by advertisers.
The GayRhonicle is bogus.
Have they fooled enough advertisers to waste their ad dollars ?
Or do the companies who buy ads do not care if the ads are effective ?
Is being politically correct in The GayRhonicle world enough ?
Great news.
I wonder if the conservative newspapers like the Washington Times, or Wall Street Journal, are doing BETTER this year?
"War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military," Georges Clemenceau, 1841-1929
"News reporting is too important to be left to Journalists," Walter Abbott, 1950 -
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