Newspaper Circulation Continues to Fall

San Francisco Chronicle hardest hit. Among many others.

The decline in U.S. newspaper circulation is accelerating as the industry struggles with defections to the Internet and tumbling ad revenue.

Figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show that average daily circulation dropped 10.6 percent in the April-September period from the same six-month span in 2008. That was greater than the 7.1 percent decline in the October 2008-March 2009 period and the 4.6 percent drop in the April-September period of 2008.

Sunday circulation fell 7.5 percent in the latest six-month span.

As expected, The Wall Street Journal has surpassed USA Today as the top-selling newspaper in the United States. The Journal's average Monday-Friday circulation edged up 0.6 percent to 2.02 million -- making it the only daily newspaper in the top 25 to see an increase.

USA Today saw its worst decline ever, dropping more than 17 percent to 1.90 million. The newspaper has blamed reductions in travel for much of the circulation shortfall, because many of its single-copy sales come in airports and hotels.

The New York Times stayed in third place at 927,851, down 7.3 percent from the same period of 2008.

Newspaper sales have been declining since the early 1990s, but the drop has accelerated in recent years. Part of this is because newspapers stopped serving harder-to-reach areas and limited circulation to their core regions.

In many cases, people simply aren't buying print copies as much as they used to, given the abundance of free news on the Internet, often from the newspapers themselves. This has prompted newspapers to consider charging fees for Web access, but it could prove difficult to persuade people to pay for something they are used to getting for free.

Newsday, a Long Island daily, said last week it plans to start charging people who don't subscribe to its print edition $5 a week for access to its Web site. Newsday's circulation dropped 5.4 percent in the latest reporting period, to 357,124.

Of the top 25 dailies, the San Francisco Chronicle saw the worst circulation decline, falling 25.8 percent to 251,782. The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey, and The Dallas Morning News both fell 22.2 percent.

All of these, of course, are rather liberal papers. While it's trues advertising revenue has shrunk, the media just never acknowledges people are abandoning paper because of their bias and won't be coming back.

Comrade Fidel Celebrates May Day, Trashes Obama

Chalk up another victory for smart diplomacy as Fidel Castro unclenches his fist and slaps Barack Obama upside the head.

Fidel Castro blasted US President Barack Obama Friday in provocative May Day remarks, saying the United States only wanted Cuba to return "to the fold, like slaves."

Castro, 82, who led Cuba for almost 50 years and remains head of the Cuban Communist Party, was not in outreach mode, though Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, 77, have made remarks aimed at easing Cold War-era tensions.

"Today, they stand ready to forgive us -- as if we would resign ourselves to returning to the fold like slaves, who after tasting freedom, go back to the yoke and whip," Fidel Castro said in a defiant address published in Cuban state media to mark May Day.

Obama has said the United States wants to see progress on human rights and political freedom from Cuba. That runs counter to Cuba's main interest in maintaining and projecting the Americas' only communist regime into the future.

Castro, who for decades referred to the United States as the enemy, warned: "The (US) adversary must never delude itself into thinking that Cuba will surrender."

I guess Fidel isn't too enchanted with Obama.

Elsewhere, open borders advocates and other sundry Communist groups today will also mark May Day with rallies nationwide. With the swine flu outbreak emanating from Mexico, I do say they have impeccable timing.

Immigrant rights advocates planning marches around the Bay Area and across the country today are optimistic that they have support in Washington, D.C., for immigration reform, but the fact that the rallies take place during a week of panic over Mexico's swine flu outbreak is further complicating a complex issue.

Aw, isn't that a shame. A possible pandemic may hurt their cause. Sigh.

Groups that favor a crackdown on illegal immigration have seized on the flu epidemic to call for closing the border with Mexico. The World Health Organization recommends not closing borders, and medical experts say overblown fear can lead to discrimination against Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans.

"There's real potential for harm to vulnerable groups like immigrants," said Jay Battacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University. "It doesn't reduce the spread of the disease."

Nonsense.

Naturally they take a swipe at those who argue for reducing the number of illegals in the United States.

And conservative commentators on blogs and talk radio, including Michael Savage and Michelle Malkin, were blaming illegal immigrants for spreading swine flu to the United States.

Seems to me what Michelle Malkin has to say makes plenty of sense, and I'm sure the majority would agree.

I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration. We’ve heard for years from reckless open-borders ideologues who continue to insist there’s nothing to worry about. And we’ve heard for years that calling any attention to the dangers of allowing untold numbers of people to pass across our borders and through our other ports of entry without proper medical screening — as required of every legal visitor/immigrant to this country — is RAAAACIST.

It appears The San Francisco Chronicle reporter Tyche Hendricks is getting his talking points from the fever swamps of the AlterNet, which, conveniently enough, gets its information from (where else?) Democrat front group Media Matters, the vicious slander outfit bought and paid for by sugar daddy George Soros.

How convenient a group purportedly "monitoring" media is basically handing them their slanted talking points disguised as news.

No wonder the Chronicle's readership is down over 15% the past year.

Hot Air links. Thanks!

Newspaper Circulation Crumbles

Sure, people are cutting back on non-essential purposes during a bad economy, but I suspect even if were were enjoying a robust economy many of these newspapers would still be losing readers.

But this is as bad as it gets. Check that. It'll probably get worse.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released this morning the spring figures for the six months ending March 31, 2009, showing that the largest metros continue to shed daily and Sunday circulation -- now at a record rate.

According to ABC, for 395 newspapers reporting this spring, daily circulation fell 7% to 34,439,713 copies, compared with the same March period in 2008. On Sunday, for 557 newspapers, circulation was down 5.3% to 42,082,707. These averages do not include 84 newspapers with circulations below 50,000 due to a change in publishing frequency.

The percent comparisons are for the same period ending in March 2008. (All daily averages are for Monday through Friday.)

Daily circulation at The New York Times dropped 3.5% to 1,039,031. The Times' Sunday circ was down 1.7% to 1,451,233.

The Washington Post lost 1.6% of its daily circ to 665,383 and 2.3% to 868,965.

USA Today, as reported earlier this month, lost 7.4% of its daily circulation to 2,113,725 due to a decline in hotel copies.

Daily circulation at The Wall Street Journal was up a fraction 0.6% to 2,082,189, but this was certainly the exception, not the rule.

Daily circulation at The Boston Globe skidded 13.6% to 302,638 copies. Sunday decreased 11.2% to 466,665.

New York's Daily News was off 14%, but rival New York Post lost even more, at minus 20%. The Star-Ledger of Newark shed over 16%. Newsday, by comparison, lost 3%*.

Daily circulation at The Miami Herald fell 15.8% to 202,122. Sunday is down 13.1% to 270,166.

San Francisco Chronicle shed 15.7% of daily copies to 312,118. Sunday fell 16.5% to 312,118.

Tribune Co. papers rolled out highly touted redesigns in this period, but lost readers. The Chicago Tribune lost 7.4% of its daily circulation to 501,202 and 4.5% on Sunday to 858,256 copies. Circulation plunged at the Los Angeles Times at 6.5% of its daily circulation (Monday through Friday) to 723,181 copies. Sunday was down 7.4% to 1,019,388.

The Philadelphia Inquirer lost 13.7% of its daily circulation to 288,298. Sunday was hit just as hard, down 12% to 550,400. Daily circulation at its sister publication the Daily News fell 7.6% to 99,103. (At the end of March the Inquirer started distributing the Daily News within its pages. The change does not affect the circulation for this period.)

Daily circulation at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution plummeted almost 20% to 261,828. Sunday decreased 7% to 462,011.

The top 25 in circulation are listed here.

These plummeting figures can't be strictly blamed on newspapers losing readers due to a liberal slant, especially when the one paper you could say that has a conservative op-ed slant, the New York Post, dropped 20%. Since the Post is owned by News Corp. (as is the WSJ), I'd expect them to weather this. However, some of these newspapers are hemorrhaging so may readers and losing ad revenue at record rates they just may not survive with a print model. Moving strictly online is already being done with some large dailies and that may be the only avenue of survival at this point.

Linked at Instapundit. Thanks!

San Francisco Chronicle Swirling the Drain

A banner week so far for crumbling newspapers, the San Francisco Chronicle just the latest.

They won't be missed. My only wonder is if there are enough Democrats around to hire all these unemployed water-carriers.

The San Francisco Chronicle joined the lengthening list of imperiled newspapers Tuesday as its owner set out to purge the payroll and slash other expenses in a last-ditch effort to reverse years of heavy losses.

If it can't reduce expenses dramatically within the next few weeks, the Hearst Corp. said it will close or sell the Chronicle, northern California's largest newspaper with a paid weekday circulation of 339,430.

Hearst didn't specify a savings target nor a deadline for wringing out the expenses. A Hearst spokesman didn't immediately respond to messages Tuesday.

But management made it clear that the cost-cutting will require a significant number of layoffs.

"Our current situation dictates that we accomplish these cost savings quickly," Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega wrote in a memo to the staff. "Business as usual is no longer an option."

The Chronicle has given Hearst financial headaches since the New York-based company bought the newspaper in a complex deal valued at $660 million. The late 2000 acquisition proved to be ill-timed. Shortly after Hearst took control, the San Francisco Chronicle was hard hit by a high-tech bust that caused its advertising revenue to shrivel.

Also Tuesday, the chief executive of Philadelphia's largest two daily newspapers pledged Tuesday to roll back a $232,000 raise while his company tries to reorganize in bankruptcy court.

Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, which publishes The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday, 2 1/2 years after a group of local investors bought the company for more than $500 million.

Chief Executive Brian Tierney and other executives have insisted the company, while strangled by debt payments, remains profitable despite falling circulation and revenues. But some lenders balked at that analysis at Tuesday's initial hearing on the bankruptcy petition and questioned decisions being made by Tierney, a former public relations executive.

Meanwhile in New York, Journal Register Co., publisher of the New Haven (Connecticut) Register and other newspapers, won approval to continue paying basic operating costs, including employee salaries and benefits and newspaper delivery contracts. Lawyers representing lenders made no objections.

Well, we already have public funding to teach these media relics the ways of the Internet. Maybe those with a semblance of talent can take up blogging.

Good News: NYT Circulation Plummets

More grim news for our friends at the NY Times.

It's not just them. Other leftwing Big Media outlets such as the Washington Post, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe also dropped.

Of course, they'll probably blame Bush rather than looking in the mirror. There was a slight increase at the Wall Street Journal with a larger increase at USA Today.

Print circulation continues on its steep downward slide, the Audit Bureau of Circulations revealed this morning in releasing the latest numbers for some of the country's largest dailies for the six-month period ending March 31, 2008. When a full analysis appears it is expected to find, according to sources, the biggest dip yet, about 3.5% daily and 4.5 for Sunday.

The following circulation compares the new data to the same period a year ago. Daily circulation is the Monday-Friday average.

--The New York Times lost more than 150,000 copies on Sunday. Circulation on that day fell a whopping 9.2% to 1,476,400. The paper's daily circulation declined 3.8% to 1,077,256.

--At the Washington Post, daily circulation decreased 3.5% to 673,180 and Sunday dropped 4.3% to 890,163.

--Meanwhile daily circulation at The Wall Street Journal grew a fraction of a percent, up 0.3% to 2,069,463 copies. USA Today experienced a greater increase. Circulation was up at the national daily 2.7% to 2,284,219.

--Daily circulation at The Orange County Register plunged 11.9% to 250,724 and Sunday fell 5.3% to 311,982.

--In Los Angeles, the Times lost more than 40,000 daily copies. Daily circulation there was down 5.1% to 773,884. Sunday declined 6.0% to 1,101,981.

--The San Francisco Chronicle reported that daily circulation dropped 4.2% to 370,345 while Sunday dropped 3.0% to 424,603.

--The Boston Globe's daily circulation fell 8.3% to 350,605. Sunday declined 6.4% to 525,959.

--The Miami Herald reported daily circulation lost more than 11% with 240,223 copies while Sunday dropped 9% to 311,245.

--Daily circulation at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution declined 8.5% to 326,907 while Sunday fell 5.0% to 497,149.

See if you can figure out what all those papers who lost readers have in common.

SF Chronicle to Cut 25% of Newsroom Staff

Another drive-by media quagmire.

To cut costs and try to adapt to a changing media marketplace, The Chronicle will trim 25 percent of its newsroom staff by the end of the summer.

"This is one of the biggest one-time hits we've heard about anywhere in the country," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, in Washington.

Eighty reporters, photographers, copy editors and others, as well as 20 employees in management positions are expected to be laid off by end of the summer. Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega said Friday that voluntary buyouts are likely to be offered.

Vega declined to say whether the paper is continuing to lose $1 million a week, as Hearst attorney Daniel Wall stated in court in November during a hearing on an antitrust suit filed by San Francisco businessman Clint Reilly.

We've discussed this issue before and it always comes back to a couple of factors. Relentlessly leftist bias at virtually all major dailies has turned off subscribers and the fact that younger generations simply do not read newspapers as much as we did growing up. I used to read three or four papers on average just 20 years ago, but there no longer is the time to devote to reading an entire newspaper, especially when much of the information presented is already outdated due to the immediacy of the Internet.

Still, those newspapers that continue to present a lopsided editorial slant will continue to suffer monetary losses. Whether they ever get around to balancing their coverage is another story.