Newspaper circulation has hit its lowest level in seven decades in the United States, according to the latest audit figures. Apart from the toll taken by rising Internet readership, price increases and the recession, observers say circulation has also fallen victim to budget cuts that have made newsrooms smaller and papers thinner. The average weekday circulation of the nearly 400 daily papers lid 10.6 per cent to 30.4 million between April and September compared with the same six-month period in 2008, the Audit Bureau of Circulations said on Monday. That was bigger than the 7.1 per cent decline recorded during the previous six-month period.
The Internet, where papers are generally free, has siphoned off circulation and advertising even as it made papers more widely read than ever before. This year, newspaper sites have had more than 72 million unique visitors a month, compared with 60 million in 2007, according to reports by Nielsen Online. But publishers are struggling to bring in enough online ad dollars to replace the loss of print advertising, and readers have been reluctant to pay for access to online newspapers sites.
Of the nation’s five biggest daily papers, four reported circulation declines, with the Wall Street Journal displacing USA Today as the nation’s largest daily. The Journal was the only one of the top 25 US newspapers to increase Monday to Friday circulation, gaining 0.61 per cent to 2.02 million. USA Today’s circulation fell 17.5 per cent to 1.9 million, reflecting the slump in the hotel industry, which distributes most of that paper’s copies.
The Journal is one of the few US papers to charge readers online, and Web subscriptions are counted in its circulation figures. It has more than 400,000 digital-only subscribers. The New York Times’ circulation fell 7.3 per cent, to 927,851, making it the No. 3 paper. The fourth-placed Los Angeles Times was down 11 per cent with daily circulation at 657,467. The Washington Post rounded out the top five with a loss of 6.4 per cent, to 582,844.
Many smaller papers have fared better than big-city dailies, in part because the local news sought by their readers is often less available on the Internet. They are also less reliant on big national advertisers.
Via LA Times, New York Times