US newspapers continue to lose readers: report

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-27 16:36

HOUSTON: The US Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) reported Monday that the 379 newspapers filing with the organization saw one of the most severe drops in overall circulation in the past six months, with average daily circulation plunging 10.6 percent.

Sunday circulation for 562 reporting newspapers was down 7.4 percent to 40 million, the non-profit circulation-auditing organization reported.

Latest statistics show that Wall Street Journal (WSJ) was the only top-ranking publication to record a gain among the top 25 dailies in the United States, with a modest one-percent increase in circulation.

The News Corp.-owned WSJ has overtaken the Gannett-owned USA Today as the largest US daily newspaper since last september, with a circulation of 2 million. USA Today follows it closely, with 1.9 million, despite a 17-percent drop in circulation.

Among the top 25 US daily newspapers, according to the ABC, the hardest-hit during the period was the San Francisco Chronicle, which lost 25.8 percent of its daily readership, followed by the Newark-based Star-Ledger and The Dallas Morning News, each seeing daily circulation drop by 22 percent.

Editor & Publisher (E&P) , a monthly journal covering the North American newspaper industry, points to several reasons why circulation keeps dropping.

"Publishers have been purposely pulling back on certain types of circulation, including hotel, employee and third-party sponsored copies," according to an article published on its website on Monday.

"They are no longer distributing newspapers to the outer reaches of the core market. The cost of delivery and the cost of materials have forced publishers to scale back."

The second reason was that "several major newspapers across the country have aggressively hiked prices of single-copy and home-delivered papers in search of circulation revenue and a renewed focus on loyal readers," the article said.

"Circulation is guaranteed to go down as prices go up, but publishers have opted to wring more revenue from readers as advertisers keep their coffers closed."

E&P said daily circulation of The Dallas Morning News dropped 20.8 percent and 15.5 percent on Sundays but executives attributed about 40 percent of home-delivered loss to the price rate increase.

But many analysts believe that major US newspapers have been hit by changing communication patterns as news consumers get more information via electronic sources such as the Internet, TV and radio. The recession has hurt advertising and compelled some financially distressed consumers to stop their subscriptions.

A new report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism looks at giving newspapers nonprofit tax status to help keep them afloat.

But skeptics worry about news organizations compromising themselves if they become dependent on the government for special tax treatment or funding.

The same concern is leveled at for-profit media companies and their relations with corporate advertisers.

With the economic recession deepening, daily newspapers are continuing to lose their readers in the foreseeable future.