The last days of ink? (2)

Newspaper Execs Say Circ Declines Reflect Shift to Web, Less Discounting

NEW YORK Editors and publishers at some of the newspapers hardest hit by Monday's FAS-FAX reports say steps need to be taken to maintain current readers while attracting new ones. But to many, the circulation declines announced today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations came as no surprise, given the overall industry trend.

But most say the circulation measurements are incomplete because they still do not take into account growing Web site activity. Others also said they had lost circulation deliberately by ending or reducing discounted programs as their value becomes diminished in the ABC measurements.

Tom Fiedler, executive editor of The Miami Herald, said he does not expect circulation to increase during his lifetime, which means newspapers must focus on the Web as a genuine delivery system: "Circulation will continue to drop until there will be a plateauing, then I expect a rapid decline.

"Newspapers will become supplemental reading for a very elite audience," he added, and the online edition "will be where the popular press lives."

"We are well aware of it, that newspapers continue to struggle to reach their audience," said Anne Gordon, managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, which suffered an 11,000-copy drop in daily circulation, and about 30,000 on Sunday. "It's not a surprise."

Still, Gordon was among several who pointed to increasing Web activity as a factor that the current FAS-FAX measurements do not address. "The Philadelphia Inquirer has more readers than it has ever had if you factor in the Web. We have well over one million readers."

At the Herald -- which has experienced a 4.3% drop in weekday print circulation since September 2004 -- Fiedler says he sees a similar corresponding shift online, where Herald.com has seen an "accelerated increase" of about 30% per year: "We are seeing that our readership is not declining if you include online -- it is actually growing."

Denise Palmer, publisher of The Sun in Baltimore, which lost some 22,000 from its daily circulation, said through a spokesman that the Sun Web site "leads the market and adds about 10% to our total audience."

Among the hardest hit papers was The San Francisco Chronicle, which saw a 16.5% drop in weekday circulation, lowering the paper's daily count to just above 400,000. Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega, who took over in January, pointed to the "70 million page views a month" the paper's Web site gets as a mitigating factor.

Vega is among several newspaper leaders who noted a deliberate reduction in discounted circulation as part of the reason for a decline, citing a need to rely less on those numbers for true recognition. The Boston Globe took similar steps, which Senior Vice President Al Larkin blamed for part of its 37,000 daily circulation drop.

"We made a conscious decision to take down our 'other paid' and about half of our decline is based on that," Larkin told E&P. "We want to make sure the quality circulation we have is maintained going forward." The Orlando Sentinel, hit with an 11% daily circulation drop, blamed part of it on a planned move away from discounted hotel distribution.

"The hotel-program reductions were intentional, so these results were expected," Deborah Irwin, vice president and director of circulation for Orlando Sentinel Communications, said in a statement. "We changed our circulation strategy in January 2005 -- significantly reducing our hotel program. Circulation results will continue to show year-over-year declines until we cycle through this change at the end of 2005."

But Larkin and others admitted that the overall circulation decline is a sign of lost and potential readers. "It is a trend that we are working hard to reverse," he said, without revealing any exact plans.

Many of the papers also cited specific causes in their markets or for their products that sparked declines. Fiedler said the increased use of "do not call" lists in his area had sparked a slowdown in subscription solicitations by phone. "That is a major tool" that his sales people have had taken away, he said.

At USA Today, which still has the highest circulation of any daily paper in the country at 2.2 million despite a slight 13,500 drop, spokesman Steve Anderson pointed to the single-copy sales price increase from 50 cents to 75 cents one year ago. Taking that factor into account, he believed the dip was almost unnoticeable. "Our issue has been the cover price and it has basically been flat," he said of circulation. "We have increased subscription sales."

At The Sun, Palmer also sought to spin the circulation decline by noting more recent increases in single-copy sales during the third quarter, which she says are up 6% daily and 7.5% on Sunday. In addition, she pointed to a Sunday circulation jump during the past four months that has yet to be reflected in the FAS -FAX report. "I am encouraged by the recent circulation trends," she said.

In Philadelphia, Gordon said the paper had made changes to its Saturday bulldog issue, with a redesign and earlier delivery time that she said had added 3,000 to 4,000 more single-copy sales of that edition. "There are a lot of plans in place to increase home delivery," she added. "We have more delivery sites and we are fairly optimistic about it."

When asked how the Inquirer's planned reduction of 75 newsroom jobs might make a circulation increase even harder, Gordon dismissed any connection. "There are fine newspapers in the country with 75 employees, period," she said. "It is a factor of a lot of things."

Average Weekday Circulation
Newspaper Sept. 2005 Circ Gain/Loss Change
USA Today 2,296,335 -13,518 -0.59%
The Wall Street Journal 2,083,660 -23,114 -1.10%
The New York Times 1,126,190 5,133 0.46%
Los Angeles Times 843,432 -33,184 -3.79%
Daily News, New York 688,584 -26,468 -3.70%
The Washington Post 678,779 -28,991 -4.09%
New York Post 662,681 -11,708 -1.74%
Chicago Tribune 586,122 -14,866 -2.47%
Houston Chronicle (M-S) 521,419 -33,367 -6.01%
Boston Globe 414,225 -37,246 -8.25%
Arizona Republic (M-S) 411,043 -2,225 -0.54%
San Francisco Chronicle (M-S) 400,906 -79,681 -16.58%
Star-Ledger (N.J.) 400,092 50 0.01%
Star Tribune (Minn.) (M-S) 374,528 -961 -0.26%
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 362,426 -34,674 -8.73%
Philadelphia Inquirer 357,679 -11,635 -3.15%
Detroit Free-Press 341,248 -7,590 -2.18%
Cleveland Plain-Dealer 339,055 -15,845 -4.46%
Oregonian (Portland, Ore.) 333,515 -4,192 -1.24%
San Diego Union-Tribune 314,279 -20,908 -6.24%