Back on the slippery slope of newspaper circulation…
Alan D. Mutter, a former editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, said in his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur, that weekday print circulation (just print, please note) at the top 25* U.S. newspapers has decreased by 41.6 percent since 2005.
Mutter, a former editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, called the drop a “troubling plunge.”
Print matters, Mutter went on to say, because it produces as much as 75 percent of revenue at a typical paper. In previous posts, Mutter has reported that between 2005 and 2012, advertising revenue dropped by more than half, from $49.4 billion to $22.3 billion.
By the way, 2005 was the all-time high for newspaper-advertising revenue.
Mutter
For his circulation comparison, Mutter relied on statistics compiled by the Alliance for Audited Media, an industry-funded trade group formerly known as the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
(A Wikipedia article says the ABC changed its name last year “to reflect the new media environment and its members’ evolving business models.” Its “members” are the newspapers themselves.)
As newspaper “business models” have evolved, so have the rules by which the AAM counts circulation, making it more difficult to track trends.
As Mutter noted: “In addition to paid print newspapers, publishers today can count digital subscriptions and even free products that deliver preprint advertising to the homes of consumers who don’t happen to buy the newspaper.”
In other words, publishers are now jumping on every manner of distribution at their disposal to pump up circulation figures.
For example, the AAM circulation report released this week shows The Star with total average Sunday circulation, including on-line subscriptions, of 280,790. Its print circulation, however, is 242,395. The difference, 38,395, represents about 14 percent of total circulation.
What is going on at newspapers, then, is a high wire act that could go either way. As Mutter said:
“The foremost question facing publishers is whether the traditional print business will remain robust long enough to support a successful pivot to the digital delivery of news, information, advertising and other commercial services.”
A lot of people, especially the critics of “dead-tree media,” are betting that the print business will not remain robust long enough for papers to make the shift. They might well be right. I hope they’re wrong, but either way I’ll muddle along, and I’ll be happy as long as my New York Times hits the driveway every morning.
And I think that’s going to be happening for many years to come.
* The top 25 newspapers, as listed by Mutter in descending order, are: the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, New York Post, Arizona Republic, Newsday, Tampa Bay Times, Houston Chronicle, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Denver Post, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Sun-Times, Newark Star-Ledger, Orange County Register, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Las Vegas Review-Journal, San Diego Union-Tribune and Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Jim – I’ve noticed that the Star is using heavier paper recently. I wonder what’s up with that? Do you know?
I hadn’t noticed, Ms. 43rd…The quality of the newsprint seems consistently good to me. Years ago, however, The Star, along with quite a few other papers, had a problem with the edges curling badly; it was very inconvenient and had me slapping at the paper and then, finally, ironing it. (Well, I made that part up.) The newsprint producers came along with some chemical treatment, however, that eliminated the problem. Now, all I have to worry about is the wind blowing it away when I’m reading it on the patio and smoking a cigar. The ashtray is a pretty good paperweight.
…What was the question again?
It will be curious to see any subscription impact from a Koch bros media buy in. Aging conservatives buying aging technology. Counterintuitive? Fire starter supply for camp meetings?
Upon further…you’re absolutely right, Ms. 43rd. When I picked up the paper at the breakfast table, I could see a distinct difference between the sports section and the A section. The newsprint for the sports section is whiter and heavier than the A section, which has more of the traditional gray cast.
I put in a call to Randy Waters, The Star’s vice president of production, to see what’s going on. I’m wondering if they are experimenting with the heavier newsprint or if they’re using it for the sports section only because of the heavy readership that section gets. The heavier print has to be more expensive.
I’ll let you know what I find out…Good observation.
I just talked to Waters, and he said that as part of a changeover from 12-inch- wide pages to 11 inches, The Star has been using up its inventory of the heavier, whiter paper, which is significantly more expensive than the regular newsprint. “We’ve been filtering it in just to get rid of it,” Waters said.
As of next week, he said, all the presses will be using the 11-inch-wide, traditional paper. Occasionally, he said, the heavier paper will be used for some special sections, and some advertisers request it.
Waters also said that yours, Ms. 43rd, was the first comment he had received from a reader about the difference in paper weight.
The Times also had that heavier newsprint on Sunday.
I thought the sports section seemed a little heavier and whiter, but maybe I’m starting to imagine things…
Bollocks! As altruistic as I’d like to be about my love and disdain for commie lib newspapers, there is a point that is never made. These organizations are usually run by commie lib, socialist, anarchist, anti-Christ, academe pointy heads. Their DNA populated by a love of liberalism and not capitalism. And most certainly not the truth.
Perhaps if the dead tree media would employ more right wing, money loving, God fearing, Bible thumping, AR15 owning, gold clinging, pseudo rednecks that like killing the goose and making their own foie gras they might not be in the financial straights they are.
Unfortunately one of the errors of our society is that journalism, like education, medicine and law, have become a business and not, as I wish they were, an art form. When in Rome.
All that matters is cash flow, ROI, EBITA and shareholder value. Unless those concepts are part of your, God forbid, greedy soul, you aren’t going to be successful running a newspaper. You probably won’t be successful running to the grocery store for toilet paper.
See Koch brothers. See Koch brothers buy newspapers. Watch Koch brothers make money. Die Koch brothers die!