CHICAGO -- For the flagships of America's biggest newspaper

By: Mark Fitzgerald companies -- busy now preparing layoffs and budget cutbacks --
the latest audit report showing circulation gains for the six-
month period ended March 31 arrived like snapshots finally
retrieved from the Fotomat, showing a shiny new car bought during
summer and repossessed last month.

The very largest daily newspapers increased their circulation
year to year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations'
(ABC) FAS-FAX. USA Today, measured from Monday to Friday,
was again the largest daily in America, gaining 26,144 copies for
an average circulation of 1,852,592. The Wall Street
Journal gained 6,907 copies over the year for a circulation
of 1,819,528. The New York Times gained just under 1% in
circulation for a weekday average of 1,159,954.

Taken as a whole, though, a Newspaper Association of America
(NAA) analysis of the ABC numbers shows newspapers this winter
and spring gave away the small circulation gains they achieved
last year. The 773 daily papers included in the FAS-FAX,
representing a little more than half the nation's 1,400 dailies,
showed overall declines of 0.9% during the week and 1.7% on
Sundays, once the industry's most reliable circulation franchise.
Every daily and Sunday circulation category, from over 500,000 to
under 25,000, showed declines, NAA found.

This was the first FAS-FAX to include "Reader Profiles" of
newspapers - readership results from studies whose
methodologies were audited by ABC. Only 52 newspapers have
completed the process so far, and just three of those were among
the top 20 in circulation. Still, their results demonstrated an
inflating effect that industry boosters say reflects the real
reach and power of newspapers. The most impressive pass-along of
the big metros was that of The Star-Ledger in Newark,
N.J., whose 407,592 weekday paid circulation became 1,003,800
readers and whose Sunday paid circulation of 606,462 translated
into an audience of 1,419,200.

But even newspaper readership was down this period, according to
NAA's crunching of Scarborough Research data. Since the fall,
readership fell from 55.1% to 53.5% during the week and from
65.1% to 63.8% on Sundays, the industry group reported.

Joint operating agreements (JOAs) had a big impact on circulation
this reporting period. Finally free of its JOA partner -- and
changing to an all-day publishing cycle -- the San Francisco
Chronicle's soared 13.4% from its previous a.m.-only cycle to
527,466. The San Francisco Examiner, which new
Chronicle owner Hearst Corp. sold to the Fang family last
year, did not report results because it wants to first
"stabilize" its circulation system, said Peter Herschberger, the
Examiner's vice president of sales and marketing. "We're
much more like a start-up than our 135-year-old nameplate would
suggest," said Herschberger, who added the Examiner would
be included in the FAS-FAX for the six months ending next Sept.
30.

Starting a JOA -- and ending their subscription war -- in January
dramatically depressed the circulations of the Denver Rocky
Mountain News, which declined 17.9% to 366,499, and The
Denver Post, which declined 11.9% to 364,451. The monopoly
Sunday Denver Post, however, immediately became the
nation's fifth-largest Sunday paper with a circulation of
970,934.



Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is editor at large for E&P.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.