War Coverage Fails to Boost Paper Sales

By: Mark Fitzgerald Publishers were still digesting the bad news from the Readership Institute that the Iraqi war failed to inspire people to read newspapers more completely or more frequently -- when the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) FAS-FAX report came along to tell them that folks weren't buying more papers, either.

In contrast to the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq was like a movie that wowed the critics -- and left the public cold. John F. Sturm, CEO and president of the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), said he heard the same story from many publishers: "A lot of papers saw their single-copy sales go up substantially, 15% to 20%, in the first days of the war. There was still an increase in the second week of the war, but smaller, maybe 5% to 10%. But as it continued, there was no more pop associated with it, and some [publishers] thought people actually got worn out about it, and [the war] actually hurt circulation."

Ironically, many of the papers that were most snubbed were the very ones providing the most extensive -- and expensive -- coverage of the war: Daily circulation was down 5.3% at The New York Times and 1.9% at The Washington Post.

A spokeswoman for the New York Times Co., Catherine J. Mathis, blamed its flagship's sinking numbers on the huge swell of single-copy sales -- as many as 180,000 copies daily -- the paper had for weeks after the 9/11 disaster in 2001: "We had some very difficult comparisons to 2002." During the reporting period, the Times also raised its hometown cover price to a dollar, which is what its national edition has cost for several years.

Last month, The Boston Globe won the most prestigious Pulitzer Prize, the one for public service. Last week, the Globe's distinction in the FAS-FAX was to have the largest year-to-year circulation decline among the 20 biggest U.S. papers.

The biggest circulation gainer among major metros was the New York Post, which gleefully published a front-page photo-illustration depicting French delegates to the U.N. Security Council as weasels. Post circulation soared 10.2%, to 620,080. Since the reporting period ended March 31, 2000, the Post, which sells for a quarter on the newsstands, has increased its circulation by 42% - and moved from being the 16th biggest paper in America to being the eighth. "The Post is attracting a new generation of New Yorkers who find our combination of news coverage, color -- and attitude -- a great addition to their daily routine," said Editor in Chief Col Allan.

Deep in the heart of Texas, the San Antonio Express-News recorded a 3.7% circulation increase -- the third-highest growth among the top 50 papers, behind the Post and The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, with its 5.9% boost -- but almost none of it was attributable to the war, said Scott Frantzen, the Express-News' vice president of circulation. In fact, the news item that triggered the highest spike in single-copy sales was a report that the San Antonio Spurs' Tim Duncan would be named the National Basketball Association's most valuable player.

"What we've been doing is really concentrating on building home-delivery and single-copy sales," Frantzen said. The paper hired more drive-time hawkers to generate street sales, and added more than 2,000 additional sites for single-copy sales. "We're doing the basics," he said.

With the economy in such a puzzling state, however, some newspapers are experimenting with circulation techniques not normally used by them. The New York Sun, for instance, celebrated its second appearance in the FAS-FAX by announcing a "rate base guarantee" of 33,000 in average paid circulation to advertisers who place six or more display ads in the paper during the second quarter. This may be a bit of a gamble, as the daily broadsheet, which turned a year old last month, reported a circulation of 26,263 in the new FAS-FAX.

Chief Operating Officer William Kummel said the paper was adopting the magazine-industry practice because the Sun is like a promising startup: "We have dynamic growth [42% higher than in September], and we want to communicate to the advertiser that we're committed to the growth of the paper, and to give them a sense of what they can expect, at a minimum."

Another experiment, the Chicago Tribune's RedEye daily aimed at young adults, had no impact on the Tribune's paid circulation in the first ABC reporting period since it hit the streets. While the tabloid is called an "edition" of the broadsheet Tribune, newspaper executives said they accounted for its copies only under ABC's sampling provisions because it was distributed for free for so long.

However, another of the Tribune Co.'s ventures, its Spanish-language tabloid Hoy in New York, continued to prove a phenomenal seller. With a 21.4% year-over-year increase to a circulation of 91,156, Hoy became the nation's second-biggest Spanish-language daily by vaulting past The Miami Herald's sibling El Nuevo Herald, which itself increased 1.2%, to 90,264. The only bigger U.S. diario is La Opinion in Los Angeles, which had a very rare circulation dip of 2%, to 125,862.

Among national dailies, USA Today remained indomitable, racking up a 2% gain on weekdays, to 2,162,454, and increasing 1.1% with its weekend edition that, at 2,602,556 copies, sells almost a million more than The New York Times' Sunday paper. Rocked by a brutal business climate, The Wall Street Journal had a nearly invisible gain of just 75 copies, to 1,820,600. But a spokesman said the daily was "thrilled" by its performance: "It's a testament to the indispensability of the Journal in any environment." Another national business paper, Los Angeles-based Investor's Business Daily, was hammered in the reporting period, with circulation dropping 11%, to 242,661.