By: Jennifer Saba The big metro papers usually get blamed for the overall plunge in circulation. But a new analysis from the Audit Bureau of Circulations show that the circulation of smaller papers declined more than their big city peers.
Overall, for most of the 534 papers that reported to ABC, daily circulation fell 3.5% for the six-month period ending March 2008. On Sunday for most of the 601 papers that filed numbers, circulation dropped 4.5%.
A break-out by circulation category reveals circulation at smaller papers declined just as much or even more than big metros.
For papers with a circulation of 200,000 or more, daily fell 3.43%. For those papers with circulation between 75,000 and 199,000, daily was down 3.59%. Papers with less than 75,000 in circulation declined 3.42%. Papers with less than 50,000 in circ decreased 3.27%. Papers with 25,000 or less declined 3.86%.
Meanwhile in a report released this week, Deutsche Bank's Paul Ginocchio weighs in on the trends. He notes that publishers, particularly those in major markets, continue to improve the "quality" of their circulation by reducing other paid. In addition, they are slashing expensive circulation that is outside the paper's key area.
Still, Ginocchio wrote about the latest overall numbers, "We think the industry was expecting an improvement in trend, and thus we view this result with some degree of alarm....
"It remains difficult to discern what the underlying secular decline looks like, and we are probably still at least 12 months away from seeing the 'true' rate of decline," he continued.
For the companies in Deutsche Bank's coverage universe, Gannett and Lee Enterprises performed better than others, while A.H. Belo took the biggest hit.
At A.H. Belo, total daily circulation was down 8.3% though the company has been actively shedding "geographically" remote and third-party circulation.
Daily circulation at The New York Times Co. slipped 5.3%. Tribune's daily circ fell 4.1%. McClatchy was down 3.8% daily. Lee's daily circ decreased 3.1% -- but the company did much better on Sunday, which was down 0.8%. Gannett's daily circulation, including USA Today, was down 2.9%.
The note also calculated how much the Web increased the reach of the newspapers. An analysis of the approximate 120 papers participating in Audience FAX revealed that the Internet increased audience reach by about 8% -- though that number was down from 10% in the September period -- for a typical newspaper.
According to Deutsche Bank, roughly 50% of the participating newspapers had a combined print-online reach of 70% or greater. The top papers for combined reach by designated market area are the following:
Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer at 86%
Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle at 86%
The Green Bay (Wis.) Press Gazette at 84%
Milwaukee (Wis.) Journal Sentinel at 84%
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