At one point, three or four years ago, for a major metropolitan newspaper to lose 4% or 5% of it daily circulation would have been considered bad news. For the six month period ending in March, ten of the top twenty-five largest dailies in the US lost over 10% of theirs, according to circulation audit firm The Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The circulation of The New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NWS) was down more than 20% to 558,140. It is the 7th largest newspaper in America.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution was down nearly as much 19.9% to 261,828. The numbers from the report include figures for Monday through Friday. The circulation at the troubled San Francisco Chronicle, which was nearly closed earlier this year, was down 15.72% to 312,118.

The Dallas Morning News, owned by AH Belo (AHC),  lost 9.88% of its circulation, dropping to 331,907. Circulation fell at the two large papers owned by The New York Times Company (NYT). At The Boston Globe the figure dropped 13.68% to 302,638. Circulation at the flagship New York Times was down only 3.55% to 1,039,031.

The Washington Post’s (WPO) circulation fell 1.16% to 665,383.

The circulation of the largest newspaper in the country, Gannett’s (GCI) USA Today was down 7.46% to 2,113,725.

The reason for the drop at many of the papers is that publishers are getting rid of subscribers who pay cut rates or live far from printing plants, making their papers more expensive to deliver. The action of letting these people go may save some money, but not nearly enough to offset falling advertising revenue.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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