Paid Newspaper Circulation in U.S. Continues to Decline
By FELICITY BARRINGER -- November 3, 1998
After a small hiccup upward last spring, daily and
Sunday newspaper circulation continued to decline,
according to figures released Monday, but the group
that has kept these unflattering industry measurements
is on the verge of giving publishers a chance to
supplement the old numbers with new data about their
sales and readership.
Paid circulation is now down almost 11 percent from its
1984 peak of 63.3 million readers, according to a
report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. For the
six months ended Sept. 30, total paid circulation was
down three-tenths of a percent compared with figures
from the period a year earlier. Sunday circulation
slipped more than twice as fast, down eight-tenths of a
percent.
At a meeting later this week, the governing board of
the audit bureau is expected to give preliminary
approval to the first new reporting format in years,
enabling publishers to supplement their standard
reports with an additional set of "total distribution"
figures, which would include heavily discounted and
complimentary copies not counted in the current paid
circulation figures.
For instance, The Wall Street Journal, published by Dow
Jones, has prepared a "statement of total circulation"
for the six-month period ended in March. The total
circulation listed was more than 75,000 more than the
newspaper's official paid circulation.
For more than a year, some publishers have been seeking
to expand the formal reporting options offered by the
audit bureau, whose 34-member governing board includes
advertisers and newspaper and magazine publishers. A
second vote expected this week is likely to approve
standardized readership surveys.
"There is no question that many in the industry have
been frustrated and searching for new and better ways
to grow circulation," said Jeremy L. Halbreich, the
former president and general manager of The Dallas
Morning News, who is moderating a debate on the
question at the audit bureau's annual meeting later
this week. The Dallas paper is owned by the A.H. Belo
Corp.
"This is not a palliative for that," he added. "It's a
recognition that in today's media market place, the
competition is stiffer than ever before. For certain
segments of the potential audience, newspapers need
some additional marketing flexibility."
After years of decline in paid circulation -- which
audit bureau regulations define as copies sold at a
discount of 50 percent or less off the newsstand price
-- industry executives had taken some comfort from the
figures released in March, which showed the first
overall gain in paid circulation in years. Monday's
circulation report, however, was a sobering reminder of
the difficulty the business has competing for attention
with television, radio, the Internet, magazines and
other distractions.
Three of the five largest newspapers in the country saw
circulation declines, including a steep drop of 25,000
copies at The Wall Street Journal, the nation's
best-selling newspaper. The Journal's average daily
circulation dropped almost 2 percent, to 1,740,450 from
1,774,880 in the period a year earlier.
The New York Times and The Washington Post also
registered declines. The Times dropped to 1,066,658,
down more than 0.7 percent from 1,074,741 in the period
a year earlier. The drop put it behind The Los Angeles
Times, which is owned by the Times Mirror Co.
The Los Angeles Times saw its average circulation gain
1.7 percent, to 1,067,540.
The Washington Post reported a circulation of 759,122,
down 1.8 percent from its September 1997 total of
772,937.
Sunday circulation at The New York Times and The
Washington Post also decreased. Sunday circulation at
The Times sank to 1,627,099, down almost 2 percent,
from 1,658,718 in the period a year earlier. The Post's
Sunday circulation dropped to 1,090,082, down about 1.7
percent from its 1997 total of 1,099,174.
Among the top five newspapers, Gannett's USA Today
continued its long upward trend, with circulation
rising to 1,653,428, up 1.5 percent from 1,629,665 last
year.
The report, said John Morton, an industry analyst who
runs his own firm, Morton Research, in Maryland, "shows
the continued weakness in newspaper circulation."
"It shows the sluggishness in circulation continues
unabated," he added. "These figures are a hangover of
the time when everybody was raising their rates so
rapidly. In the good old days, it used to take six or
eight months to recover form a price increase. Now it
takes anywhere from two to three years."
But John Sturm, the executive director of the Newspaper
Association of America, said that over all the
September losses were more than offset by the March
gains, making the year's results "basically flat." He
acknowledged, however, that he had thought the
September figures would show "more positive territory."
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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