Newspapers Post Steep Fall in Circulation
The newspaper industry got bad news Monday as circulation posted sharp drops -- a falloff that was particularly steep in Southern California.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations reported figures that showed daily circulation fell 1.9% nationwide. Sunday circulation fell 2.5%. In Southern California, daily circulation of local newspapers fell 2.2% and Sunday slipped 3%.
The Los Angeles Times, owned by Tribune Co., led the local decline with a 6.5% fall in Monday through Saturday circulation and 7.9% for Sundays. Overall circulation for the newspaper stood at 907,997 weekday and 1,253,849 Sunday.
Newspaper circulation in general has been slipping since the 1980s, but Monday’s report -- covering a six-month period ended March 31 -- was especially troubling, said veteran analyst John Morton. He said the national declines in recent years have usually been at the rate of 0.5% to 1% on weekdays.
“Part of it might be that publishers are tightening up how they do their reporting in the wake of the circulation scandals,” Morton said.
Last year, several newspapers disclosed overstated circulation figures. They included Tribune’s Newsday in Melville, N.Y.; Belo Corp.’s Dallas Morning News; and Hollinger International Inc.’s Chicago Sun-Times.
Another contributing factor, according to the Newspaper Assn. of America, was the national do-not-call list, which went into effect in late 2003 and has cut heavily into telemarketing sales.
“It used to be that telemarketing would account for 60% to 65% of new subscription sales,” said John Sturm, chief executive of the association. “Now it’s more like half, and no one good way has been found to replace them.”
That was true at The Times, said Executive Vice President Jeff Johnson, who will become publisher of the paper next month. To help close that gap, he said, the paper will spend $10 million on advertising this year, including direct mail, television and radio campaigns.
“It’s more expensive, at first,” Johnson said. “But we tend to get a higher-quality sale in that the customers tend to stay with us longer.”
The figures for almost every newspaper in Southern California were down, driven by a number of factors, including a freeway-focused commuter culture, changing demographics and uncertain economic conditions.
The Orange County Register lost 2.9% for Mondays through Saturdays and 2.8% on Sundays. The Pasadena Star-News was down 4.1% for Mondays through Fridays and 8.1% on Sundays. An exception: the Los Angeles Daily News, which registered a rise of 0.1% for Mondays through Fridays but a drop of 0.5% on Sundays.
“An economic downturn didn’t use to affect circulation all that much,” Morton said. “A newspaper was considered almost a utility that people relied on for help-wanted ads and to tell them where you could buy things cheap, as well as the news. It’s not as true as it used to be.”
Sturm said the figures did not accurately reflect a newspaper’s readership at a time when many people are accessing it on the Internet. “We need to move to a readership system that takes this into account,” he said.
But Morton dismissed that notion. “The fact is that newspaper subscribers are dying off at a rate faster than they are being replaced,” he said.
