Japanese like newspapers

The six largest newspapers, by circulation, are in Japan. USA Today, America's most widely circulated paper, is 13th on the list.

LANG inches up

The newspapers in LANG saw circulation rise slightly, according to the LA Daily News. Sunday circulation rose 1 percent for the nine papers, to 428,100. It was up 3 percent on weekday, to an average of 408,200.

The story does not break out numbers for individual papers.

The Daily News, which is the largest of the nine LANG papers, did provide it's own circulation numbers. From the story:

The Los Angeles Daily News saw its Sunday circulation increase nearly 3.9 percent to 97,000 during the six months that ended Sept. 30, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to figures released Monday. 

The same report by the Audit Bureau of Circulations recorded a 0.14 percent increase in the paper's average daily circulation to 89,093.

Newspaper circulation drops slightly less sharply

Circulation numbers are out of the last six months and most big newspapers saw a decline when compared to last year. The drop isn't as bad as in past years, but that's not saying much. For some papers, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, this decline has been relentless. Here are the numbers for the 25 largest papers, as reported in the New York Times, with this year's first, followed by last year's, and the percentage change:

WALL STREET JOURNAL   2,061,142 … 2,024,269 … 1.82%
USA TODAY   1,830,594 … 1,900,116 … -3.66%
NEW YORK TIMES   876,638 … 927,851 … -5.52%
LOS ANGELES TIMES   600,449 … 657,467 … -8.67%
WASHINGTON POST   545,345 … 582,844 … -6.43%
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS   512,520 … 544,167 … -5.82%
NEW YORK POST   501,501 … 508,042 … -1.29%
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS   477,592 N/A
CHICAGO TRIBUNE   441,508 … 465,892 … -5.23%
HOUSTON CHRONICLE   343,952 … 384,437 … -10.53%
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER   342,361 … 361,481 … -5.29%
NEWSDAY    314,848 … 357,124 … -11.84%
DENVER POST   309,863 … 340,949 … -9.12%
ARIZONA REPUBLIC   308,973 … 316,873 … -2.49%
MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE   297,478 … 304,544 … -2.32%
DALLAS MORNING NEWS   264,459 … 263,810 … 0.25%
CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER   252,608 … 271,182 … -6.85%
SEATTLE TIMES   251,697 … 263,588 -4.51%
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES   250,747 … 275,641 … -9.03%
DETROIT FREE PRESS   245,326 … 269,729 … -9.05%
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES   239,684 … 240,146 … -0.19%
OREGONIAN   239,071 … 249,164 … -4.05%
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE   224,761 … 242,693 … -7.39%
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE   223,549 … 251,782 … -11.21%
NEWARK STAR-LEDGER   223,037 … 246,006 … -9.34%

Four today

1. New media is just as dicey as old: Digg laid off 25 people, equivalent to 37 percent of its staff. TechCrunch

2. What's worse than elitists? New ones. Charles Murray at WaPo

3. Striking news: Fox News Channel profits from polarization. PoliticusUSA

4. A primer on the newspaper circulation numbers dropping today. AdAge

Small gains in the SGV

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Whittier Daily News reported small circulation gains in the last six months, according to the latest ABC numbers. The Tribune, which didn't report on last year's circulation losses, carried a story yesterday about the increases:

[The] Whittier Daily News posted a total paid daily circulation of 14,129 in March, up 3.5 percent from 13,645 a year earlier, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune's daily circulation rose 0.5 percent to 36,041 compared with 35,867 in March of last year.

The third paper in the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group, the Pasadena Star-News, saw circulation slip 0.3 percent to 25,410.

Circulation drop*, **

The average weekday circulation for the daily newspapers fell 8.7 percent over the last six months, according to the most recent ABC report.

Of the big papers, the San Francisco Chronicle and Dallas Morning News did the worst, dropping 22.6 percent and 21.4 percent, respectively. The Washington Post and USA Today also saw double-digit declines, with the Post down 13.1 percent and USA Today dropping 13.6 percent. The New York Times beat the average, but only slightly, with a drop of 5.1 percent.

The Wall Street Journal was the only major newspaper to see a bump in circulation, though by less than 1 percent. Most of the increase was attributed to a boost in the paper's online subscription base.

*Added from LA Observed: [The] San Diego Union-Tribune ... saw its circulation plunge 23%**. The Los Angeles Times lost 14.7% to reach 616,606 daily (down 7.6% Sunday to 941,914.)

**CORRECTION: As a reader correctly pointed out, the numbers for the Union-Tribune are wrong. The San Diego daily saw its circulation drop 8.7 percent

Late circulation update

Back in October, I posted the circulation numbers for most of L.A. County's daily newspapers. I wasn't able to get numbers for two of the papers until now. Here's the update:

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune saw its weekday circulation fall to 33,387, down from 37,594 a year ago. That's an 11 percent drop. The Whittier Daily News fell to 13,076 from 14,563, a decline of 10 percent.

A small sliver of a silver lining: The Pasadena Star-News saw a 1 percent increase in Sunday circulation and the Whittier Daily News saw a 2 percent increase.

Falling, falling

If you pay attention to such things, no doubt you've seen the ugly numbers for national newspaper circulation. Editor and Publisher calculated an average drop of 10.6 percent for the six-month period ending in September.

From E&P:

The New York Times is down 7.2% to 927,851. Sunday fell 2.6% to 1,400,302.

The Los Angeles Times reported its daily circ is off 11% to 657,467 and 6.7% on Sunday to 983,702.

Daily circ at The Washington Post fell 6.4% to 582,844 while Sunday was down 5% to 822,208.

Daily circ at the Chicago Tribune decreased 9.7% to 465,892. Sunday was down 7.1% to 803,220.

The San Francisco Chronicle lost more than a quarter of its daily circ, down 25.8% to 251,782. Sunday was off more than 22% to 306,705.

Daily at The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., dropped 22.2% to 246,006 and 18.5% on Sunday to 371,060.

The Boston Globe's daily circ decreased 18.4% to 264,105. Sunday lost 16.9% to 418,529.

American's newspaper, USA Today, fell 17 percent, putting it below the Wall Street Journal, which saw a light uptick of .6 percent.

Alan Mutter at Reflections of a Newsosaur provides some context:

Following an average drop of 10.6% in the last six months, daily newspaper circulation has fallen to a pre-World War II low of an estimated 39.1 million, according to an analysis of industry data released today.

The first double-digit circulation decline in history means only 12.9% of the U.S. population buys a daily newspaper.

Hasse returns to LANG

After four years as marketing director at the Los Angeles Times, Ron Hasse will return to the Los Angeles Newspaper Group to work on circulation and marketing for the Singleton-owned chain. Here's a portion of the memo from LA Daily News publisher Jack Klunder, who was also at the Times until recently:

I am pleased to announce that Ron Hasse will be returning to the Los Angeles Daily News as the Vice President of Consumer Marketing effective Monday, October 12, 2009.

As many of you know, Ron spent many years at the Daily News in a variety of capacities including Circulation Director as well as the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for LANG. For the past four years Ron served as the Director of Sales & Marketing for the Los Angeles Times where he was instrumental in developing many of the “go to market” strategies and programs currently in place at the Times.

Ron will have day to day responsibilities for all circulation activities at the Daily News, Long Beach Press Telegram and the Torrance Daily Breeze. He will report directly to Linda Lindus, Publisher of Long Beach and Torrance as well as yours truly.

Additionally, Ron will have LANG responsibilities developing sales strategies for the other LANG properties. In that capacity, Ron will be working directly with Dave Williams, Vice President Circulation for LANG.

Press-Enterprise pullout

As part of the continuing cutbacks at the paper, the Riverside Press-Enterprise has announced it will stop delivering to several cities in San Bernardino County. The paper has eliminated a sizable chunk of its SB County reporting and editing staff already.

From the memo:

In January of this year, we were faced with the choice of leaving San Bernardino County or implementing a very aggressive price increase to allow us to cover our costs of publishing and continue delivering in San Bernardino County. Unfortunately, a significant number of subscribers in parts of S.B. County refused to accept the increase in price and cancelled their subscriptions.

Consequently, after further review, we have made the decision to discontinue home delivery in certain parts of the San Bernardino market due to low penetration levels. We will continue delivery in those areas where subscriber acceptance remains high, but unfortunately we will eliminate home delivery service in Chino Hills, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana and Rialto on Monday, July 13, 2009. The final print edition of The Press-Enterprise will be delivered to subscribers’ homes on Sunday, July 12, 2009.

Read the complete memo here.

In addition, rumors abound that the PE wants to sell its new headquarters, which the paper moved into two years ago, and move back to the old digs next door.

Times' Sunday circulation drops below one million

Ed Padgett at the LA Times Pressmens' blog reports that the Sunday circulation of the Los Angeles Times dropped below one million last Sunday for the first time in his memory. Padgett writes:

My career at the Los Angeles Times began on August 3, 1972, and the Sunday circulation of our newspaper always surpassed the million mark my entire career. This unfortunately changed on Sunday June 7, 2009 when circulation eased below one million copies.

Here’s a headline from the Los Angeles Times Media Center: 1961 Sunday circulation breaks the one-million mark several times during the year.

Eddy Hartenstein was brought on board as publisher of the Los Angeles Times on August 18th, 2008 to stem the bleeding at the newspaper. Just like his three Tribune Company predecessors, the blood flow has not stopped or even slowed.

With circulation and advertising descending on a daily basis at the Los Angeles Times will our publisher resort to cutting expenses by reducing the size of the workforce to increase revenue, one more time?

On Sunday, June 7th, 2009 the Los Angeles Times distributed 584,310 West edition newspapers, 404,352 East Edition newspapers, for a total distribution of 988,662 Sunday newspapers.

Contraction

The Denver Post has cut home delivery to most outlying areas in Colorado on all days but Sunday. AP

Circulation down in the IE

Daily newspapers covering the Inland Empire saw significant declines in circulation over the last six months, according to the latest ABC survey. The Riverside Press-Enterprise dropped 14.6 percent, putting the Monday through Friday circulation at 140,079 and the Sunday circulation at 147,339.

The P-E, which has suffered several rounds of layoffs in recent weeks, touted a 5-percent gain in its "total audience" share, which includes online readers.

The Press-Enterprise also reported drops in circulation for its main competitors, but did not include any online-audience numbers in the story. From the P-E:

The San Bernardino Sun, owned by Media News Group, saw circulation decline 8 percent to 49,952 Monday through Friday and 3.4 percent to 55,746 on Sunday.

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the Media News paper in Ontario, dropped 9.1 percent to 48,954 weekdays and 10.8 percent to 52,616 on Sunday.

Redlands Daily Facts, also owned by Media News, dropped 2.5 percent to 6,916 weekdays and 2 percent to 7,012 Sundays.

I haven't seen numbers for the rest of LANG yet.

The average drop in print circulation nationwide was 7.1 percent.

Poor circulation*, **

Circulation is down at nearly all of the top 25 daily newspapers. The two exceptions are the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, both of which broke even. The Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, Houston Chronicle, Star-Ledger and AJC saw double-digit declines.

*UPDATE: It struck me in reading these numbers that the idea of the physical newspaper as a secondary source of news is solidifying among readers. I'm sure higher gas prices helped chase off those who subscribe out of mere habit. But given the fact that circulation dropped at major dailies amidst a fascinating presidential campaign and as the economy was just beginning, we're seeing more and more people rely on the Internet for news.

Most news junkies graze among the news sites throughout the day. Those who continue to subscribe to a newspaper either pour over it in the morning before heading to work (ritual) or find in it things that they can't find during the day - in-depth features, crosswords, comics, business stories and editorial/opinion pages, etc. Or, they may turn the paper later in the day when they have time to read through longer articles.

None of this is evidence that newspapers should be cutting back on editorial staff, although I'm sure it will be taken that way.

**UPDATE II: What Ken Doctor at Content Bridges has to say about it:

One big reason the numbers are declining is the product itself. In the last year, we've seen unprecedented cuts in the product -- and the customers are noticing. It looks like the amount of newsprint is down about 10-15%; some in stories, some in ads. Trusted bylines have disappeared overnight. Readers notice, and talk to their friends, and they're saying: it's not the newspaper it used to be. When the subscription notices come, they're a little less likely to be acted upon.