JOA FAS-FAX Of Life: The Big Partner Grows, While The Small Shrinks

By: Mark Fitzgerald The Newspaper Preservation Act of 1969 didn't do much of a job this preserving circulation in Seattle this Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) reporting period. JOAs also continued their pattern of adding circulation to the market-leading paper while shrinking the smaller partner.

According to the ABC FAS-FAX for the six months ended March 30, which was released Monday, daily and Sunday circulation was down at the closely watched Seattle JOA, where the feuding partners encountered a recent legal roadblock in their attempt to settle their litigation with binding arbitration, the bigger Seattle Times slipped 5.4% in daily circulation to 220,734. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer was down 9% to 131,769.

The jointly produced Sunday edition also declined, off 4.7% to 435,581.

In the first full reporting period since Gannett bought the Detroit Free Press from former JOA partner Knight Ridder and sold The Detroit News to William Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group, circulation was also down daily and Sunday, though much more modestly.

Weekday circulation of the Freep was virtually flat, off just an average 69 copies from the year-ago period to 345,861. The Freep widened the gap between it and the News, which slipped 2% to 214,934.

The Sunday paper, which had been jointly produced for much of the reporting period, was down 1% to 669,315.

Denver's JOA continued to shed circulation gained during the long newspaper war -- and the daily circ totals of the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post continued to mirror each other nearly exactly.

On an average weekday, the Post was bigger than the Rocky by just 25 copies, 255,452 to 255,427. Each paper declined a little more than 4.6%. The Sunday edition averaged 669,315, down 1% from last year.

Elsewhere, the bigger paper in a JOA generally increased modestly, while the smaller paper continued to shrink.

For instance, The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, which was included in Knight Ridder's sale to The McClatchy Co., slumped below 30,000, falling 12% to 29,089. In Arizona, the Tucson Citizen stayed below that circulation mark, declining 7% to 28,627.

The Cincinnati Post, which will likely close at the end of next year when the JOA is terminated, stayed above the 30,000 level despite a 13% drop to 30,951. The Cincinnati Enquirer added an average 3% to boost daily circulation to 201,979.

The Charleston (W.Va. ) Daily Mail slipped 1% to 24,306 while the Charleston Gazette was up 2% to 51,150.

In Pennsylvania, the York Dispatch fell 2% to 32,013 while the York Daily Record increased 1% to 47,583.

The Salt Lake City JOA was something of an exception to the rule: While the lagging Deseret News was down, it was only by an average 199 copies to 75,543. The Salt Lake City Tribune was also virtually unchanged, gaining less than a tenth of a percent to 131,711.