New York Times Circulation Plummets

NEW YORK — Circulation fell sharply at most top U.S. newspapers in the latest reporting period, an industry group said Monday, with the exception of the two largest national dailies, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.

Those papers eked out gains of under 1 percent, while The New York Times, the No. 3 paper, fell 3.9 percent in the six months ending in March, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Newspaper circulation has been on a declining trend since the 1980s but the pace of declines has picked up in recent years as reader habits change and more people go online for news, information and entertainment.

National newspapers like USA Today and the Journal have tended to hold their ground better, as have smaller-market dailies where competition from other media like the Internet isn't usually as intense.

Gannett Co.'s USA Today remained the top-selling paper in the country with an average daily circulation of, 2,284,219, up 0.3 percent, while The Wall Street Journal rose 0.4 percent to 2,069,463. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought the Journal's parent company Dow Jones & Co. last December.

The New York Times Co.'s flagship paper remained the third-largest with circulation of 1,077,256, down 3.9 percent from the same period a year earlier. That company also owns The Boston Globe and International Herald Tribune.

Metropolitan dailies have suffered the worst declines, a trend that continued in the most recent reporting period, with the Dallas Morning News reporting a 10.6 percent drop to 368,313.

The Dallas paper's corporate owner A.H. Belo Corp., newly spun out of broadcasting company Belo Corp., said as part of its earnings statement Monday that the company was culling back on less valuable circulation such as copies distributed through third parties.

Other metro dailies also posted steep declines, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, down 8.5 percent to 326,907, and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, down 6.7 percent to 321,984.

Declines at other major papers were less severe, with the New York Daily News narrowly keeping the upper hand on its crosstown tabloid rival, Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. The Daily News posted a 2.1 percent decline to 703,137, while the Post fell 3.1 percent to 702,488.

Both Murdoch and Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman are going after Tribune Co.'s Newsday on neighboring Long Island. Newsday, meanwhile, posted a 4.7 percent decline in circulation to 379,613.

The twice-yearly report from the Audit Bureau includes figures from most major U.S. newspapers but not the entire industry. At the nearly 550 papers that reported comparable figures for both periords, average daily circulation fell 3.6 percent in the most recent period.

Several smaller to mid-size papers posted gains, including a Spanish-language daily in New York called El Diario La Prensa, up 7.6 percent to 53,856, while The Times in Munster, Ind., owned by Lee Enterprises Inc., rose 3 percent to 86.195.

The Chicago Sun-Times, reporting for the first time since being censured in 2004 for circulation misstatements, posted circulation of 312,274, but no prior-year numbers were available for comparison.

Comments

[unscum]

Who needs the New York Times and people like Judith Miller when you have the Huffington Post. Burn baby burn!

[ROBOT8]

ten steps that "fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders [employ to] seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies.” The ten steps are:
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law
naomi wolfe

[DSPinPW]

I don't like Brooks or Kristol and I never liked Safire - but there has to be a limit to reading or hearing only what you want to hear. Anybody who doesn't appreciate the insights of Rich or Dowd is kidding themselves if they think they're open-minded. They are the last, best reasons to read the Times in my opinion.

This was the newspaper in my parents' home; when I started reading the opinion pages it was the likes of Reston and Lewis - and Safire. The Times gave us the Pentagon Papers and many other invaluable stories over the years - most recently the Pentagon's publicity scam. I would be sorry to see it go, and i will probably remain aboard as long as it stays afloat.

[bikerdude]

Don't forget Krugman...

[dawlishgal]

Krugman (a formerly admirable man) has lost it, IMO, with his compulsive support of Hilary Clinton. The last column of his that I read was the REALLY STUPID one in which he, like the dimmest of the dimwits, accused Obama supporters of being "cultists." If he has redeemed himself since, I wouldn't know because I no longer read anything he has to say.

[dawlishgal]

The Times made a big mistake by charging to read it on the web. I read it for 15 years when we lived in the NYC area. When we moved to rural MN, it was unavailable, and I counted on the web.

I paid the 50 bucks, but realized that there was a lot of stuff missing, including a political comment line similar to Huffpost..

The Judith Miller thing made people not trust the newz section. (Almost nobody but "The Nation" still has useful REAL information anymore....everything else --even PBS--has devolved into NEWZ shills).

I think the owner probably capitulated to his corporate warmongering cronies..

We live in a place now (THANK GOD) where stuff is available. Sunday, my husband bought me the Times and a supermarket tabloid,....(we have a deal wherein if one of us is certifiably sick, the other must humiliate him/herself by procuring junk reading). I read the book reviews and the magazine, but the rest of it bored me...even the madcap courtship-wedding feature that I used to enjoy. And the tabloid had a horrendous thing about Obama that was full of innuendo and no substance at all, but, of course, the headline that people read while standing in the checkout line promised a lot of dirt.

Hardly worth not feeling well . I used to love sitting up in bed, feeling pleasantly woozy from cough syrup, and reading crapola.

[anywho]

The NYT became irrelevent as a "news"paper when they pulled the "wire" story (Bush photographed wearing a wire during the last debate with Kerry). The Judith Miller fiasco didn't help; but hiring Bill Kristol was the last straw. The WSJ is no better, it's sales have declined too.

[Taaj]

Since the news media is an arm to Corporate America and it is all about screwing the average American, as we get screwed so do you. Just report the news and keep your opinions to yourselves.

[bikerdude]

They need to make another big change at the top. Keller and Sultzberger are severely damaging the integrity of the NYT. For me, hiring a shill like Kristol was the end of the line. There are a whole bunch of really readable, honest, conservative writers with at least a modicum of integrity. Kristol ain't one of those.

[dawlishgal]

Sultzberger could do everybody a favor by selling the paper to somebody with intelligence and integrity (if there is anybody like that still around who wants to waste money on a failing biz).

[avraamjack]

.
I stopped buying the Washington Post when it got taken over by the gang stalkedrs.
.
It used to be a fine quality paper. I miss that.
.

[BushBites]

How's that Bill Kristol workin' out for ya?

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

Hey, it hurts being a neoconservative trash rag when neoconservatism has been discredited. Shoulda bet on a different horse.

[Anne1776]

It's because they endorsed Hillary. Intelligent, informed, educated people who actually think for themselves, don't vote for her.

[newshawk14]

I used to read the NY Times on the web regularly, but I've seen the quality go steadily down, to
where I find I seldom read an Op-Ed or article anymore. The idea that the NYT is some bastion
of Liberalism is utterly ludicrous. Like most MSN it has simply become another mouthpiece
of corporate America, lacking integrity and intelligence.

[bikerdude]

Thanks to Sultzberger and Keller...

[Maxstar212]

I cancelled my subscription. My father subscribed to it when I was growing up in the 1960's, and I've always subscribed to it since I left his house. But, as I wrote in a letter to Schulzberger (which I know will never reach him) his father and Grandfather would never have allowed Frank Rich the ability to slander Hillary on the pages of the Sunday times. Maureen Dowd and the others also did their dirty work. Amazingly, Krugman called the times editorial pages (along with other papers) NIXONTIME. Rich has brought the times to the level of dirt that would make Nixon happy. I am not against opinions that differ from mine, but propaganda as evil as riches should not be rewarded by my buying the paper.

I am sure that I am not the only long time reader so outraged by Rich that I cancelled my subscription. A family tradition of daily reading the times of over a hundred years ended in 2008.

[dawlishgal]

Rich is the only thing in the Times that I still read.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

Dear New York Times, For 10 million dollars I will tell you how to make your paper the biggest, bestes, most seriousiness and popular paper in the U.S. of A.. Just sayin'.

[JohnKemp]

I'm really looking forward to the NYT's last issue.

The sooner the better.

Fiction at its worst.

[rascalov]

As opposed to the Post or some other Murdoch screed that you read then wipe all over yourself, Kemp?

[sclucie]

I don't know why their circulation has tanked - but I grew up thinking of the New York Times as almost a bible. It is reassuring to know that I'm not the only one who has been appalled by their warmongering, their apologies for the Bush administration, and this year by their sloppy national coverage and the senseless Kristol editorials.

[BeyondGoodAndEvil2]

Endorsing Clinton and McCain, hiring Kristol, and helping McCain by running the Iseman story after McCain won the Republican nomination has ruined their credibility.

[nibblybits]

And of course, the NYT is taking the exact opposite strategy they should. Instead of beefing up their news division and devote a greater commitment to the highest journalistic standards, they cut cut cut in the areas they should bolster most.

They aren't the paper they used to be.

[bikerdude]

Again, this is a management issue. Improve the product, make it as instantly accessable as possible and really fund the reporting of the news. Now, if you have an internet connection you can read the AP and Reuters wires and get about 90% of what is published in paper. Cutting costs as a solution to a bad product is the territory of bean counters and incompetent news executives.