Circulation declines accelerated at major U.S. newspapers for the six-month period ending in September, in the latest sign of struggle for an industry that is continually grappling with changing reader habits.
Average paid circulation fell 2.8 percent on weekdays and 3.4 percent on Sundays, the Newspaper Association of America reported Monday, an even worse showing than the last time figures were released in May.
In the Puget Sound area, the Seattle Times and the Post-Intelligencer both saw smaller declines than they did a year ago. The Herald’s weekday circulation fell by less than 2 percent and increased on Sunday.
The figures are based on biannual publishers’ statements delivered to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, a publishing industry group, and only include figures for newspapers that reported to the Audit Bureau for both comparable periods.
The declines tended to be largest at major metropolitan dailies, while smaller papers and the two largest nationally circulated papers fared somewhat better. The Los Angeles Times posted the largest decline among a top newspaper – 8 percent.
Overall U.S. newspaper circulation has been declining steadily on an annual basis since 1987, according to broader figures compiled by the NAA, as newspapers face increasing competition for readers’ time from other media such as cable TV and the Internet.
With print newspaper circulation declining and more people going to the Internet for news, newspapers have been putting more emphasis on their Web site operations, which are growing rapidly but still make up a relatively minuscule proportion of their overall revenues.
Gannett Co.’s USA Today remained the top-selling newspaper in the country during the six-month period with average paid circulation of 2.2 million, down 1.3 percent from the comparable period a year earlier.
The Wall Street Journal kept its No. 2 spot at just more than 2 million, down 1.9 percent. The New York Times was next with more than 1 million, down 3.5 percent.
New York’s two fiercely competitive tabloids were the only papers in the top 20 to win circulation gains in the period. The New York Post’s circulation jumped 5.1 percent to 704,011, edging ahead of its longtime rival the New York Daily News, which had a gain of 1 percent to 693,382.
Among other major newspapers, the Washington Post had a 3.3 percent decline to 656,297; the Chicago Tribune fell 1.7 percent to 576,132; and the Houston Chronicle, owned by Hearst Corp., fell 3.7 percent to 508,097.
Separately, the Newspaper Association of America also reported that, according to its analysis of online traffic data from Nielsen/NetRatings, nearly 57 million people visited newspaper Web sites in the third quarter, up 24 percent from the same period a year ago. That figure made up 37 percent of all Internet users.
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