Single-Copy Sales Get Slight Wartime Boost

By: Lucia Moses Coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks aided single-copy sales, but did little to boost overall circulation at most newspapers. A decade earlier, news about the Persian Gulf War didn't really help sell more papers on an ongoing basis, either.

And a similar outcome appears to be in store for publishers this time around. While single-copy sales have increased since the United States invaded Iraq last week, the numbers have been far from breathtaking.

The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, daily circulation 203,435, put out an additional 19,000 copies March 20 and sold between 50% to 75% of them, Circulation Director David Kirkman said. Each of the following two days, the Tribune boosted its single-copy distribution by 10,000 but sold only about 30% of the additional copies, he said.

On the two days after the 9/11 attacks, in contrast, the Trib sold more than 100,000 additional copies, Kirkman said. "It's very hard to be precise," he said of predicting single-copy sales. "Of the people I talked to, I think everybody guessed a little high."

The Star Tribune in Minneapolis expects a 10% to 15% lift in single-copy sales because of war-related interest, said Carolyn Thompson, circulation manager for single-copy sales.

At the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "The appetite for news has been very good, but we are not seeing overall sales numbers that we ... saw back in the early '90s, as well as what we saw at the time of the 9/11 disaster," Marketing Vice President Tom Pierce said. He added that last Sunday's strong street sales were likely due more to the paper's coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament than to war news.

Papers have increased their single-copy distribution by 25% to 50%, estimated John Murray, vice president for circulation marketing at the Newspaper Association of America based in Vienna, Va. "Sales are up, but not to the extent they were after Sept. 11 or the last Gulf War. ... I think the bottom line is, there's so much more media coverage."

The war began too late in the month to affect the next Audit Bureau of Circulations FAS-FAX report, which covers the six months ending March 31, Murray added.

In addition to newspapers being subjected to competition from cable TV and the Internet, several circulation directors speculated, the muted launch of Persian Gulf War II -- and the lack of surprise surrounding it -- also held back their sales.
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