By: Mark Fitzgerald The nationally distributed Christian Science Monitor lost 8.6% of its circulation over the last year -- a period in which it won warm praise for its coverage of the Iraq war and its aftermath.
A Monitor spokesman said the results are not so much a loss over one year, as the return to the circulation level after sustaining relatively high circulations in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks.
"Like most papers, we saw a tremendous spike after 9/11 -- but unlike most papers we retained that for some time," said Communications Manager Jay Jostyn. "Rather than the two to three months spike most papers had, we retained it ... and now it's gradually gone down and we're pretty much back to the level we were prior to 9/11."
Monitor circulation for the six months ended this March 31 fell 6,469 copies to 69,170 from 75,639 during the same period in 2003, according to the FAS-FAX supplement released this afternoon by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). Jostyn noted that between the March 2001 and March 2002 reporting periods, Monitor circulation grew about 12% to 80,191. Comparing this latest reporting period to the March 2001 period, he noted that circulation was off about 3%.
Taking an even bigger hit over the past year was The Bakersfield California, which reported a daily circulation of 63,341, a loss of 6,387 copies or 9.1% of its circulation. Californian Circulation Vice President Graham Annett said the decrease was the result of a deliberate strategy begun two years ago to wring out marginal customers and circulation churn, and build permanent gains with long-term subscribers. Now, he said, 71% of the customer base pays either six or 12 months in advance, or is on an EZ Pay automatic renewal system. By eliminating telemarketing, the paper also stopped selling constantly churning subscriptions to areas that were least attractive to advertisers, he said.
The dip in the reporting period was predictable, but circulation bottomed out in February, and has been growing since, Annett said: "We no longer rent circulation. To date, we have grown over 1% on home delivery (and) single copy is up over 2%."
The Monitor and Californian results were the only notable news in the FAS-FAX supplement. This reporting period no big-circulation papers missed the deadline for the first report, which was released May 3. Instead, the list was dominated by smaller papers that skipped the first go-round, such as The News-Courier in Athens, Ala. (down 212 copies or 2.8% to 7,356) and The Daily Star in Oneonta, N.Y. (down 173 copies or 1% to 16,941).
Among the bigger papers reporting late were the Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press (up 298 or 0.4% to 69,443); Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal (up 328 copies or 0.5% to 66,598); and Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat (down 262 copies or 0.5% to 51,022).
The 23 newspapers that missed the deadline for the FAS-FAX supplement include the Chicago Defender, the Delta Democrat Times in Greenville, Miss., and the Daily Astorian of Astoria, Ore.
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