Newspaper Circulation Down 5 Percent

By Associated Press
NEW YORK — Circulation is still dropping at U.S. newspapers.

Figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show average daily circulation fell 5 percent in the six months that ended Sept. 30, compared with the same period a year earlier.

The latest decline was not as steep as the 8.7 percent drop seen in the previous reporting period, which ran from October 2009 through March of this year.

Sunday circulation fell 4.5 percent in the April-September period, also a smaller decline than the 6.5 percent drop in the six months before that.

1 of 25

1. Wall Street Journal

1 of 26

First Slide

Previous Slide

@

2010 Circulation: 2,061,142, up 1.82%

Mortified Local News Reporter Does Not Realize She's On Air, Talks About Her Paleness (VIDEO)

Rush Limbaugh Ad Boycott Cost Cumulus Radio 'Millions,' CEO Says

gadgets/slideshows/197113/slide_197113_475913_small.jpg

Whoopi Goldberg: George Zimmerman's Apology Has 'No Bearing' For Trayvon Martin's Parents (VIDEO)

gadgets/slideshows/209837/slide_209837_701659_small.jpg

Fox News' Monica Crowley: Sandra Fluke Is Engaged 'To A Man'?

Rosie O'Donnell On 'Today's Professionals': Clashes With Donny Deutsch, Wishes Barbra Streisand A Happy Birthday (VIDEO)

Prosecutors Consider Phone Hacking Charges For 11 People

2010 Circulation: 2,061,142, up 1.82%

comments(346)

Total comments: 346 | Post a Comment

1 of 26

This Newspaper

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Must-Read

• 
  1
• 
  2
• 
  3
• 
  4
• 
  5
• 
  6
• 
  7
• 
  8
• 
  9
• 
  10

Top 5 Newspapers

loading...

Top 5 Newspapers

UserName

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Top User Slides

← Prev|Next →

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Users who voted on this slide

← Prev|Next →

loading...

Several trends factor in the decline. The growing popularity of free news on the Web is making newspaper subscriptions unnecessary for many readers. And publishers have been looking to offset losses in advertising revenue by raising newsstand and subscription prices. Some newspapers have reduced delivery to less profitable areas, figuring the cost of trucking newspapers far afield doesn't pay off in extra advertising dollars.

Of the 25 biggest newspapers by circulation, only The Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp., and The Dallas Morning News, owned by A.H. Belo Corp., posted weekday gains. The Journal posted growth of 1.8 percent, with average daily circulation of 2,061,142. The Morning News grew 0.25 percent to 264,459.

Circulation figures include paid online subscriptions. The Journal benefits from that because it charges for its main website, while most other daily newspapers leave their sites free and only charge for digital replicas of the print edition, a market that remains small.

Among those largest newspapers, the biggest decline came at Newsday, the Long Island, N.Y., daily newspaper owned by subscription TV provider Cablevision Systems Corp. Its circulation fell nearly 12 percent to 314,848.

The Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle, both owned by Hearst Corp., also lost more than 10 percent of their circulation.

John F. Sturm, president of the Newspaper Association of America, said the continued circulation declines came in as expected, and he pointed out that newspapers now reach many thousands more readers on the Web and cell phones.

Comments

[REDSTATEREFUGEE]

03:45 PM on 11/11/2010

It pains me to admit it, but newspaper readership is positively correlated with age. Dinosaurs like me, who were raised in print media and then became familiar with electronic journalism, can appreciate both forms of mass communication, but younger generations, for whom electronics carry an almost mystical quality, consider newspapers, magazines, and books to be superfluous.

As those 50+ begin to die off, so will newspapers. Each morning, when I make my little journey out to the driveway to collect my edition of the SF Chronicle, it increasingly occurs to me what a quaint, nostalgic, little ritual I engage in, whereas I could just warm up the PC and access virtually every news story and many features contained in the print version.

Newsprint remains one of those comfortable artifacts from my past, much like listening to geezer rock from the mid-sixties, but which will assuredly pass from the scene. The first great information age took place as Western society moved from hand copies to mechanical printing. Now I know how Europeans felt at that time, amazed at the new technology, but, at the same time, at a loss for the familiar.....

[Chris 54321]

11:39 AM on 10/27/2010

...THUG -

[Greg2000]

10:59 AM on 10/27/2010

Americans should curse the day that guy became a citizen.

[vetxcl]

01:47 AM on 10/27/2010

oh no!!!! how will we ever get the truth from rrrrreeaaallll journalists???? sniff.
and then there's this: http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/cbs-maintains-ratings-lead-rivals-fade_1172523

[vetxcl]

01:42 AM on 10/27/2010

real news you can use: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/oct/18/us-chamber-commerce/us-chamber-says-health-care-law-hammers-small-busi/

[MinnesotaPurple]

06:28 PM on 10/26/2010

Can someone PLEASE tell me what magical source of revenue this NEWS site possesses that the NYTIMES cannot? If newspapers are doomed so is this site!!!!!

Secondly, if you read the fine print they quote daily circulation and ignore the bread and butter edition SUNDAY. Circ on Sunday is up for several newspapers.

This site COMPETES with newspapers online! What a joke!

[vetxcl]

01:51 AM on 10/27/2010

her book tour and obama bashing seem to coincide with her hiring a new, political commentator, or more accurately a paid opinion shaper. my guess is that since huff&puff recycles so much newzzzz from other sources (broadsheet and other) they do have a personal stake in a paper's demise. leave it the media to perpetuate myths, or circle the wagons to protect their own.

[Doug Compagner]

04:59 PM on 10/26/2010

WTJ= #1 & Fox News #1...MSNBC, CNN, NYT's are all in a heap load of trouble.

[vetxcl]

01:52 AM on 10/27/2010

the media loves it's own factoids. meanwhile, real viewership is still found on the networks: http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/cbs-maintains-ratings-lead-rivals-fade_1172523

[cincinnati]

02:40 AM on 10/28/2010

who cares what brain washed zombies watch ?

yes, they vote unfortunately, they start wars like with Bush, they
even believe Cheney when he said
" debt does not matter ! ".......but they will learn in the end.....
if there's any hope for this democracy....

[Subversive]

02:46 PM on 10/26/2010

I love all the posts about how people WANT conservative publications and how liberal publications ALWAYS fail. Try a little truth . . .

Conservative media has NEVER earned a profit. National Review lived by the good graces of the Buckley family fortune. The Washington Times lives by the graces of the Rev. Moon fortune. The Weekly Standard survives off the News Corp. billions. Ditto with the New York Post, NewsMax, and the WSJ. Liberal media won't survive until it learns the most important principal of the Free Market: Find a "sugar daddy."

[mcmutter]

01:30 PM on 10/26/2010

WSJ kas all the same political views as the NY Post .... wonder why .....

[vetxcl]

01:52 AM on 10/27/2010

same corporate daddy.

[Kestrel10]

12:43 PM on 10/26/2010

Take these numbers with a grain of salt. My father, my father-in-law and I all get the Wall Street Journal. None of us are paying for WSJ and all of us have tried to cancel it. I have been getting it free for over a year. I have even called the WSJ to cancel.

I tried to cancel the paper because it has morphed into USA Today with long articles. I used to read it because it was truly a first-rate business newspaper. Sadly that's no longer true. The business keeps shrinking.

Maybe our experiences are unusual, but I wonder.

[somearelost]

02:22 PM on 10/26/2010

I don't believe one word you just said.

[Kestrel10]

04:28 PM on 12/01/2010

Still getting the Wall Street Journal. Still not paying.

[williamina]

08:26 PM on 10/26/2010

liar

[Kestrel10]

04:28 PM on 12/01/2010

Maybe they stop sending it to me when they go digital.

[Wisco-libertarian]

12:13 PM on 10/26/2010

This is also because the Wall Street Journal provides a product wanted by the public. Same reason Fox News (or Fake News, as so many haters like to call it) gets better ratings than MSNBC. It provides a product the public wants.

[turkeyfish]

07:33 PM on 10/26/2010

"journal provides a product wanted by the public"

don't you mean suckers who can be lured in the the WSJ new exclusive set-up pieces on the very businesses that are using their product, thinking they have one up on the other guy, when all the while Ruppert Murdoch has lured them into another controlled filming situation. He gets everyone paying in both directions and even collects from the Chinese by doing in US government expense. Its a great business he has going. Transcontinental extortion of businessmen and politicians.

[williamina]

08:27 PM on 10/26/2010

fantasy

[eric14]

07:17 AM on 10/26/2010

In these hard times people need no longer buy sections of newspapers they don't read, so they don;t buy newspapers. Hate to think how much money I've spent on newsprint covered in sports that I didn't read. No more.

[WebCommoner]

04:23 AM on 10/26/2010

"It's a perception. I'm not saying it's a correct perception, but it is a general perception, which in itself becomes a fact." - Rupert Murdoch

He owns the most popular "news" network and the most popular financial "news" publication. He also owns the DOW and recently started his own financial "news" network. Murdoch is well on his way to owning the "facts" simply by keeping a tight control over perception.

[dct1999]

03:58 AM on 10/26/2010

As long as Rupert buys his own papers in bulk, he'll always "win". What a stupid headline.

[williamina]

08:28 PM on 10/26/2010

idio t

[socialmistfit]

03:23 AM on 10/26/2010

Let's see... everyone going down was ranked highly left biased by a recent UCLA study. The WSJ was ranked slightly left in the news section but a conservative leaning editorial section.