Suffers first ever double-digit decline over six months

By Toni Fitzgerald / Media Life Magazine
Oct 26, 2009
 
The circulation decline for U.S. newspapers got even steeper during the latest reporting period, hitting double digits for the first time.
 
Average weekday circulation fell by 10.62 percent during the six months ended Sept. 30 for the 379 daily newspapers measured by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which released the data this morning. That marked a loss of more than 3 million copies per day, from 34,005,421 last year to 30,395,652 this year.
 
That’s a much steeper decline than was reported in the last three periods. The period ending in March this year saw daily circ fall 7.09 percent, the period ended in September ‘08 was off 4.64 percent, and the period ended in March ‘08 was off 3.6 percent.
 
Sunday papers also suffered significant falloffs during the period ended last month. ABC figures for 562 papers found that circulation declined 7.49 percent, from 43,253,201 to 40,012,253.
 
Again, that was a much steeper dip than the previous three recording periods, which saw dips of 5.37 percent, 4.85 percent and 4.6 percent.
 
Circulation has been decreasing for years, obviously, but there’d been speculation that this reporting period would see even bigger drops.
 
For one thing, the recession has forced people to cut back on all sorts of extras, and that includes newspapers now that news is available via other free sources like the internet and cable.
 
Too, changes in the industry itself have hurt circulation. The Detroit newspapers, for example, cut back on delivery, and USA Today has been hurt by changes in its hotel programs.
 
As expected, the Wall Street Journal surpassed USA Today to become the nation’s No. 1 newspaper, with an average daily circulation of 2.02 million.

Posted under Newspaper

From MediaPost Publications
By Eric Sass
September 17, 2009

The decline in newspaper ad revenues — now several years old — will continue for at least another year, according to Fitch Ratings, which issued the gloomy prediction in an overview of the media business released earlier this week.

According to Fitch’s “Credit Encylo-Media,” newspapers will not share in the recovery forecast for some other media in 2010, thanks to continuing downward trends in all three traditional mainstays of newspaper advertising: classifieds, local, and national ads. Read More…

Posted under Newspaper, Research, Revenue

From Media Life Magazine
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
June 3, 2009

Newspaper ad revenue plummets 28.3 percent

Newspaper ad revenue has declined each of the past three years, and it certainly doesn’t look like that will change this year. Papers suffered their worst decline in recorded history during first quarter, according to numbers put out by the Newspaper Association of America. Quarterly revenue plunged 28.3 percent compared to the same time last year, from $9.2 billion to $6.6 billion. The hurt was felt across print and online both, with the latter slipping 13.4 percent to just over $696 million, the steepest decline since the NAA began tracking web revenue in 2003. Print was off 29.7 percent, to $5.9 billion. Classified took the biggest hit, off 42.3 percent from last year. It follows the worst-ever quarterly decline for radio as well.

Posted under Newspaper, Revenue

From MediaPost Publications
By Erik Sass
May 14, 2009

Much attention has been focused on the decline of major American newspapers, and it’s common knowledge that print advertising revenues have plunged over the last couple of years. But exactly how much money have newspapers lost in their print operations? An estimated $18.7 billion from 2006-2008. Read More…

Posted under Newspaper, Revenue

Blog By Geoffrey James
April 29th, 2009

I asked a room full of newspaper writers a simple question: “Have you EVER read a newspaper advertisement?” Less than 5 percent admitted to having done so. Ever. In their whole lives.

Think about that for a minute. If newspaper writers aren’t reading newspaper ads, why would newspaper readers be reading them? And if nobody is reading newspaper ads, what’s the value of that ad? Not much, obviously.

Read the entire blog article here.

Posted under Newspaper

From the San Diego Business Journal Online
By Connie Lewis
April 28, 2009

Weekday circulation for The San Diego Union-Tribune stood at 261,253 on March 31, down from 288,785 on the same day last year, according to a report released April 27 by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The ABC takes snapshots of newspapers’ circulation figures every six months — on the last days of March and September. Read More…

Posted under Newspaper

From Radio Ink Magazine
March 26, 2009

LOS ANGELES — March 26, 2009: Los Angeles Times columnist Dan Neil, in a recent column on online advertising and newspapers, talked with Rubicon Project CEO Frank Addante, who runs an online-ad optimization company that specializes in newspaper websites. And Neil closed out the column with this quote from Addante: “I don’t want newspapers to die like radio.”

Southern California Broadcasters Association President Mary Beth Garber has written to Neil in response, saying, “By presenting Mr. Addante’s inaccurate statement as fact, you have left the reader with the impression that radio is dead. Nothing could be further from the truth.” Read More…

Posted under Newspaper, Radio, Research

Hold ‘em or Fold ‘em
From The Center for Media Research
March 24, 2009

A new 24/7 WallStreet report says that, over the last few weeks, the newspaper industry has entered a new period of decline. The parent of the papers in Philadelphia declared bankruptcy as did the Journal Register chain. The Rocky Mountain News closed along with the Seattle Post Intelligencer, owned by Hearst, and Hearst has said it will also close The San Francisco Chronicle if it cannot make massive cuts at the paper.

The report includes a list of the ten major daily papers that are most likely to fold or shut their print operations and only publish online, chosen based on the financial strength of their parent companies, the amount of direct competition that they face in their markets, and industry information on how much money they are losing. Based on this analysis, it is possible that eight of the fifty largest daily newspapers in the United States could cease publication in the next eighteen months. Read More…

Posted under Newspaper, Research

From The San Diego Business Journal
By Connie Lewis
March 18, 2009

The Copley Press Inc. has entered into an agreement to sell The San Diego Union-Tribune, the city’s only major daily newspaper, for an undisclosed price to Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity, the paper reported March 18. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second quarter.

According to the private equity firm’s Web site, the Union-Tribune would be its first newspaper acquisition. It has specialized in the acquisition of information technology, telecommunications, logistics, metals services, manufacturing and distribution firms since its founding in 1995. Read More…

Posted under Newspaper

From Radio Ink Magazine
March 6, 2009

NEW YORK — March 6, 2009: Nielsen reports from its pilot study of its new radio ratings service in the Lexington, KY market, saying that more than 20 percent of people 12 and older in the market use only cellphones, and those no-landline homes listen to much more radio than the sample overall.

The cellphone-only homes logged 23 hours of radio each week, compared to 19 hours for the total sample, and they listened to 3.5 stations a week, compared to less than three for the sample. Not surprisingly, the cellphone-only homes also skewed younger, primarily 18-34. Read More…

Posted under Newspaper, Radio, Research, TV & Cable