Newspaper Circ Numbers are Bleak
By James Plouf
No surprise here (at least not for me). The latest circulation data for the top 25 daily newspapers shows steep declines for all but one newspaper. That lucky guy is the Wall Street Journal. And let’s not get all excited. It was less than 1% increase. The other 24 were all down. USA Today was down a staggering 17% (ouch). I personally have not read a newspaper in years.
For a bit of good news, here is a list of the top circ gainers. Don’t get too excited. These are all tiny pubs not in the same league as the big daily papers
Here is the complete list as published by the Audit Bureau of Circulations
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL — 2,024,269 — 0.61%
USA TODAY — 1,900,116 — (-17.15%)
THE NEW YORK TIMES — 927,851 — (-7.28%)
LOS ANGELES TIMES — 657,467 — (-11.05%)
THE WASHINGTON POST — 582,844 — (-6.40%)
DAILY NEWS (NEW YORK) — 544,167 — (-13.98%)
NEW YORK POST — 508,042 — (-18.77%)
CHICAGO TRIBUNE — 465,892 — (-9.72%)
HOUSTON CHRONICLE — 384,419 — (-14.24%)
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER — 361,480 — N/A
NEWSDAY — 357,124 — (-5.40%)
THE DENVER POST — 340,949 — N/A
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC — 316,874 — (-12.30%)
STAR TRIBUNE, MINNEAPOLIS — 304,543 — (-5.53%)
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES — 275,641 — (-11.98%)
The PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND — 271,180 — (-11.24%)
DETROIT FREE PRESS (e) — 269,729 — (-9.56%)
THE BOSTON GLOBE — 264,105 — (-18.48%)
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS — 263,810 — (-22.16%)
THE SEATTLE TIMES — 263,588 — N/A
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — 251,782 — (-25.82%)
THE OREGONIAN — 249,163 — (-12.06%)
THE STAR-LEDGER, NEWARK — 246,006 — (-22.22%)
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE — 242,705 — (-10.05%)
ST. PETERSBURG (FLA.) TIMES — 240,147 — (-10.70%)
Are we starting to get the picture here? When a ship sinks you jump off it.
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Daily newspapers are in trouble but there are more than 8,000 weeklies that never get any attention and yet seem to fulfill what readers want most: purely local news about friends, family, neighbors, community. Advertisers also seem to like these user-family friendly publications, especially paid circulation ones that have a bona fide, named audience (every mailing label has a person or family name on it). I pitch weeklies because I own and publish a 163-year-old paid circ one in a college community in Central New York, an area the federal government has designated as “economically depressed.” When the last daily publishes, there will still be weeklies.
James why are you beating up on these newspapers? Poor things, they are still confused by Facebook and expect that their rich Executive Editors will still get those 100K annual salaries. These trends don’t bode well, but that one exception…the WSJ…deserves attention, it’s a damn good newspaper and worth every penny.
I agree with Max that the Journal has mostly managed this by putting out a really good newspaper that gives you more than you can find online. Great reporting, good insights, great trend watching. They didn’t accomplish this by trimming back or dumbing down. They still have good travel pieces even!
Also, don’t dismiss those smaller papers just because they’re not serving a whole huge metropolis. Many of them are doing quite well and are more profitable than the biggies ever were. They certainly don’t resemble a sinking ship. Local news is still local and it’s more fun reading a newspaper in a coffee shop or on your deck than a laptop.
As a Walter Cronkite grad, it’s sad to see, but this ship isn’t going to turn around.
The magazines are seeing the same trendline. Of course “nobody reads anymore.” But those who do like to read online.
The experience is very different though, so we’ll lament this end of an era and proceed as always.
Alas, woe is us.
The Journal’s model looks to be the wave of the future. They have a great website, but to access many of the stories you need to be a premium subscriber – which comes with a hard-copy subscription to keep their ABC numbers looking fresh. Smart, just like the rest of the pub.
I feel or sense that this generation will never know the small articles on page five of a newspaper. I truly believe the gist of the world news is on page five, not on the front page. I am a perpetual traveler, it takes to much work to skim Internet pages to read the news, therefore I miss what is happening in our world.
Maybe the daileys could stop the slide into oblivion if they rebuilt trust–i.e. start publishing the truth again.
I’m with Andy and Tim — Without newspapers and their inside pages, we miss too much; and newspapers are more fun than laptops in a coffee shop or at my breakfast table.
James, I was sorry to see that you haven’t read a newspaper in years, thus contributing to their demise. I’m an anachronism, I know, because I read several a week, but it gives me a broader view than the Internet or TV, for all their immediacy. Times are a’changin’ but don’t ring that death knell yet.